Love Admissions, Part Two
by TourmalineTrue
Summary: No, there's not a Part One to this fic. A family vacation to Hawaii yields some shocking results and Brian and Stewie return with a radically-changed relationship.
1. Getting Away From It All

**Disclaimer: I do not, never have, and never will own Family Guy.**

**Oh, and the commercial Peter stars in is a tip of the hat to a Corona commercial.**

**Chapter One: Getting Away From It All **

Brian was sitting on the sofa perusing the newspaper one day when something in the publication caught his attention. A name, and what was written about the owner of this name caused the dog to do a perfect spit take with his coffee.

"Oh, my God," he muttered in stunned dismay to himself, getting out his wallet and locating the business card for his shrink, Dr. Kaplan. The doctor had recently been so solicitous and willing to make himself available to Brian as to go against common practice and write down his home phone number for him, and it was this series of digits that the dog now punched into his cell phone.

A woman answered.

"Mrs. Kaplan?" asked Brian.

"Yes. Who is this?"

"My name's Brian Griffin, I was a patient of your late husband."

"Oh. Well, what can I do for you, Brian?" Her voice sounded cool and detached. _The reality of her husband's death probably hasn't completely hit her just yet, poor woman, _Brian thought sympathetically.

"Well, um, I was quite- quite shocked to hear of his passing- and saddened by it, too, I really had high esteem for him, and _you_ have my deepest sympathy. Had he been ill? Or was it something more sudden? I had an appointment with him a couple weeks ago and he seemed fine, so…I was wondering if you could tell me, um, how he died?"

"Yes, it was very sudden," said Mrs. Kaplan stiffly. "And no, he wasn't sick, except for mentally…you see, Brian," suddenly her voice was dripping with copious sarcasm, startling the dog, "my husband, the revered psychotherapist who spent his career helping so many others with their issues, was helpless in the face of his own crippling depression. He hung himself in our den. That's how he died: suicide."

"Oh, my God!" Brian gasped, truly aghast.

"Yes." Mrs. Kaplan agreed tersely.

Brian was shaken by this information. "I-I can't believe it," he murmured quietly.

"Come by the funeral tomorrow; seeing him in a casket will _make _you believe it," advised the new widow dryly. "Thank you, Brian, for expressing your sympathy. And goodbye." With that, she clicked off.

As soon as Brian had numbly shut his cell phone and returned it to his pocket, Lois entered the living room, in the midst of some great enthusiasm.

"Brian! Such exciting news!" she cried, flapping her hands in a supremely delighted fashion, apparently not noticing the dog's downcast demeanor. "Peter just called from work! The brewery had a drawing for a trip to Hawaii to star in an ad for their new beer, Pawtucket with Lime, and he won! We all get to come, too! Isn't that fantastic? We're going to Maui!"

Brian looked up at her; it took him a moment to register the meaning of her words. What she'd just told him _was_ pretty cool, and once he understood it, he smiled slightly through his gloomy stupor, trying to muster the sound of being psyched up about this news into his voice.

"Wow, Lois, yeah, that is exciting."

The half-heartedness of his reply caused Lois to look at him inquisitively. "Something wrong, Brian?"

Brian sighed. "I just found out my therapist died." He held the newspaper up in front of her and gave it a despondent shake.

"Oh, Brian, I'm sorry," said Lois, frowning. "How did it happen?"

For some reason, Brian didn't feel like sharing the truth with her. "I haven't the faintest idea," he lied. "The obituary doesn't list a cause of death." Which was factual; still holding the paper in front of her, Brian jabbed a finger at the appropriate obit with a bit more emphasis than was called for, as though keen to supply proof of this after telling his fib.

"Oh. Well, is there anything I can do?"

"I'd like to go to the funeral. It's tomorrow. We're not due to leave for Hawaii before then, are we?"

"No, we don't leave until Monday. You're all freed up to attend the funeral."

**BREAK!**

The Griffins were staying in a beach house belonging to relatives of the director of the commercial (who had gone to the mainland for _their_ vacation) that Peter had been chosen to star in to promote the new flavor of Pawtucket Beer. Their first day there, Lois, Meg, Chris, Stewie, and Brian all tagged along with Peter to his shoot.

Two folding chairs had been established on the pristine white sand, looking out to the vast, stunningly blue crystalline ocean waters. Peter lounged on one of the chairs, and next to him sat a beautiful actress who was playing his significant other. They each had a bottle of Pawtucket with Lime sitting on the little table between their chairs. Another beautiful woman walked by, clad in a sexy bathing suit, causing Peter's head to turn. As it did, his slightly-irked girlfriend decided to be mischievous and teach him a lesson for ogling another woman. She grabbed his bottle of beer and shook it up hard. When Peter turned back around, grabbed his beer, and twisted it open, a strong gush of it came raging straight out the top of the bottle, the force of the geyser of lager pushing Peter's glasses up and unleashing itself straight into his eye. Peter cried out and dropped the bottle, advancing on the actress playing his romantic companion in very real anger.

"What the hell, bitch? I look at another chick and to get revenge you decide to put my eye out! I was just looking! Jeez, if you're that insecure about our relationship then why are you with me at all?"

Peter's fake girlfriend shrieked in terror as she attempted to ward Peter off, Lois and the film crew jumping to her aid.

"Peter, no!" shouted the director, he, too, rushing forward to intervene. "That's not how it's supposed to go!"

While this chaos erupted around him, Brian just heaved a sigh, and started to walk away down the beach, far from where the commercial was being shot. But his mind was already farther away still. He needed to be by himself. He needed to escape this absurd frivolity, for he couldn't deal with it right now, not when he had such weighty matters encumbering him.

Over the course of the next several days, everyone else was living it up, having a grand old time in the tropical paradise, but Brian couldn't stop thinking about Dr. Kaplan's suicide. He went off on his own for long stretches of time during the day; he overheard Lois say to the family that she thought he'd met a girl to have a vacation fling with, and he kept disappearing to spend time with this new amour. Brian did nothing to disabuse the family of this notion.

There were three bedrooms in the beach house, one for Peter and Lois, one for Stewie, and Chris and Meg were made to share, which they of course griped about ad nauseam, but were ultimately forced to comply, as Stewie's room was too small to be shared. By anyone except Brian, that was. At night he slept on the floor of the baby's room, which he'd also taken to doing frequently at home, the reason being that he found the peace Stewie radiated while in an infant's untroubled slumber soothing. And he liked to fall asleep near someone he knew loved him as much as Stewie did.

Brian also made sure to hang out with Stewie in the mornings, before he would depart for his long, brooding walks around Maui on his own, so the kid wouldn't sense that something was wrong, or feel neglected. Splashing about in the water with his friend, or taking him to get ice cream. Once Stewie asked where it was that Brian went off to so often, but when Brian had merely replied, "Nowhere", the kid had let the subject drop. Brian thought that Stewie probably didn't press because he didn't want to hear about the new girl that Brian was supposedly dating.

On the fifth day of their vacation, Brian walked out the front door of the beachfront property and saw the other Griffins all hanging out outside in the surf and sand. Stewie and Chris were making a sand castle together, with the baby clearly the architect with a specific vision for the way he wanted it built, and Chris his laborer. From where he stood, Brian could hear Stewie giving his older brother orders. And Chris, with his artistic talents, was actually doing not a bad job at it at all. Peter was driving a speed boat, towing Meg behind on waterskis. Only she wasn't standing up, just holding onto the rope for dear life being drug through the water because the boat was going too fast, screaming her head off while Peter laughed hysterically at her. Lois lay on a beach towel, lost in a romance novel, and her sunscreen-coated skin gleaming tantalizingly in her itty-bitty bikini. Truly a beautiful sight. He would have come closer to be able to better gawk at her splendid form, but even _that _wasn't inducement enough for Brian to want to forego taking off again for another afternoon alone.

Brian slunk back inside to sneak out through the back door instead. But before he left on his solitary outing, he placed a phone call to the offices of the therapist whose location was closest to where the family was staying, and as luck would have it, Dr. Sharpe had an opening the very next afternoon, which Brian eagerly booked.

**BREAK!**

Brian sat waiting on the couch in Dr. Sharpe's office, a totally straight line running from the base of his spine to the top of his head as he held himself stiffly, his posture reflecting how ill at ease he was. He was impatient for her to come in, yet partly wishing she never would. Brian was at heart a private person. He'd been a patient of Dr. Kaplan's for years, and even after having known him and trusted in him for long, there'd still been some things that Brian hadn't felt completely comfortable disclosing to him. The prospect of opening up to a stranger- even a trained mental health professional who was more than accustomed to listening to people bare their souls to her- was nerve-wracking for the dog.

A woman in her mid-30's backed into the room, her eyes focused on the clipboard that she carried. She had dark brown hair styled in a pixie cut and slightly hawkish features, but her conservative pencil skirt and high-collared blouse were worn by not a bad figure.

"Brian Griffin?"

"That'd be me."

"Pleasure to meet you." Glancing up from her clipboard, she drew near the couch and offered her hand. "I'm Dr. Sharpe."

She walked to her desk and set a timer that was situated there, then took a seat in a leather-upholstered armchair that matched the couch Brian was slowly lowering himself into a reclining position on.

"So what brings you here today, Brian?" asked Dr. Sharpe, flipping to a presumably clean sheet of paper on her clipboard. "What would you like to talk about?"

"I just…had an urge to come in," Brian began, his voice a trifle hesitant. "I'm on vacation here with my family, and Maui's so beautiful, and there are so many fun things to do and I should be enjoying myself, but… I can't stop thinking about something that happened back home almost a week ago." he revealed. He took a breath before going on. "Before we left on this vacation, I found out my therapist killed himself."

Dr. Sharpe nodded understandingly, jotting something down. "And you're wondering if you're somehow responsible? That he did it because he thought you were such a hopeless case that it made him lose faith in all mankind?"

"No!" shouted Brian, scowling. "It-it's just a traumatic thing, when someone you know commits suicide! I went to the funeral, and it was just so goddamn depressing! I know funerals are _supposed_ to be, but…Christ, you should have seen his wife! She wasn't sad at all, just furious at him for dying without enough life insurance and sticking her with the mortgage. But there were plenty of people who were genuinely mourning, too. At my lowest point, doc, I used to think about suicide…I don't think about it anymore," he hurried to reassure her, as he saw her expression grow gravely concerned. "My friend Stewie sort of talked me out of it, actually, made me see how sorely I would be missed…and what Dr. Kaplan did only served to reaffirm for me how selfish an act suicide really is." For being apprehensive at first about trusting a stranger with his innermost thoughts and secret worries, it was all coming pouring out of him now. "I'm trying to have, you know, a more positive outlook about things, but there's one thought I keep returning to. H-he was supposed to have it all figured out, you know? People in that line of work are supposed to be the most mentally stable and at peace there are! If he wasn't able to make a go of life then how the hell am I supposed to?"

"I can understand that," said Dr. Sharpe, nodding along rapidly as her hand flew across the page, hastening to scribble some more notes. "It's kind of like when you go to the hair salon, and you see that your stylist has a terrible hairdo, and you think, 'well, how can she possibly know what do with _me_, if she doesn't even know how to make herself look good'?"

_What? _"Um…sure…" Brian gave a drained sigh and threw an arm across his eyes. "What's the meaning of life, anyway?" he pleaded to know.

Dr. Sharpe had an ironic smile in her voice as she answered, "I'm just a psychologist, Brian, I'm not here to answer the deep mysteries of the universe for you. We live because we're alive, and we do what we can to make ourselves happy."

"But how am I expected to do that, 'make myself happy'?" questioned Brian, taking the arm away, exasperation abruptly breaking into his tone. "My life feels empty and pointless, I don't even have a girlfriend for God's sake!"

"And what's preventing you from meeting someone?" Dr. Sharpe wanted to know, the tone of her voice saying that she'd heard this complaint all too often before, and made Brian feel trivial. He shrugged uncooperatively.

"Are you perhaps still hung up on an ex?"

"No, that's not it," he said. "I've been in love many times before, but after a relationship ends, I get over it pretty quick," As he grew more introspective, he glanced down sadly as he twiddled his thumbs. "I tend to go from being crazy about someone to feeling like they couldn't matter less to me . I'm always sad that it didn't work out, but one good bender's usually enough to act as a sort of exercism, and I never think about the girl again," Brian paused to produce a wry laugh. "Is that normal?" Not giving the doctor an opportunity to offer her opinion to this query, he confessed, "I've never had lasting feelings for any woman…well, except for Lois."

Brian went on to tell Dr. Sharpe about his previous romantic conquests, and wrapped up his narrative by telling her all about his years-long infatuation with Lois.

"Did it ever occur to you, that _should_ Lois reciprocate your feelings and decide to embark upon an affair with you, leave Peter for you…that as well as betraying your best friend, you'd be breaking up a family?" asked Dr. Sharpe as Brian ended his dialogue.

"Of course it occurred to me!"

"Okay, you admit that you _have _thought of the ramifications of pursuing Lois, and still you continue to make moves on her. What do you think that says about you as a person?" It was plain from the pejorative stare she'd fastened on him that she, anyway, didn't think it said the least good about him at all.

"I don't know, that I'm awful? That I'm a selfish, backstabbing asshole?" Brian guessed in an extremely mocking voice, glaring back at her. He never should have come here today. Really, this woman had been no help to him so far whatsoever. Why _had_ he come? She couldn't tell him why Dr. Kaplan had offed himself- she wasn't inside his head when he was tightening the noose. And she couldn't fix his life for him either, this whole therapy business was a whole lot of bull. "But I'll have you know that I'm _not _pursuing her anymore. I think I've fallen out of love with her, too. I mean, I'd still like to…" he trailed off suggestively and gave his head a wag to add to what his tone suggested. "She's still freakin' hot, and you don't have to love a woman to want to do that."

_And to that point…_Even though he was somewhat annoyed by her, the more he looked at her, the more Brian saw that Dr. Sharpe was attractive in a stern, sexy schoolteacher kind of way, and she really _did_ have a hot bod. And who knew, maybe this _would_ turn out to be love. They always said that you found it in the most unexpected places.

"This might be a bit improper," he began, "Considering…well, I know you guys typically have a type of 'code' where you don't date patients, but…perhaps you'd like to have dinner with me before I head back to the mainland?" He tried for his best charming smile.

Dr. Sharpe sent him a distinctly unamused one in return. "That's okay if you want to be improper; I'm more than proper enough for the both of us. But this just furthers my point that you're looking for love in all the wrong places."

Brian frowned. How was that? Was he supposed to be picking up women at Mensa meetings and poetry slams? Well, the idea had occurred to him, but just in case she had a better one (after all, he'd never followed through on seeking out women at places like the aforementioned because he didn't want to meet some dowdy nerd), he asked,

"Where _should_ I look for it then?"

Dr. Sharpe held up a hand to indicate that he was getting ahead of himself. "Before we get to that… before you start going out looking for another partner, first I think we better get to the root of why you're always trying to force intimacy with women."

Brian was deeply offended. "Wha- what are you talking about? I don't try to 'force intimacy' with them! I've never had sex with a woman without it being totally consensual!"

"No, Brian, not that type of intimacy. Mental, emotional, spiritual intimacy. You're so desperate to connect with someone that you project what you want to find in these women onto them and convince yourself that there's more there than there really is. You seem to have a habit of making every woman you date, or want to date into your soul mate. When, based on the facts you've shared with me, every one of your relationships, in all actuality, has been quite shallow."

Brian just stayed silent. She wasn't telling him anything he didn't know, he was aware that he didn't always make the best choices in women. But it wasn't like he set out to meet these disasters-in-high-heels. It just happened like that, and he was getting damn sick of people thinking he was shallow all the time.

"Even with Jillian, who you did end up developing real feelings for: she was your longest relationship, and when you spend that amount of time with someone, you're _bound_ to acquire some sort of affection for them. But affection doesn't equal true love and it doesn't make you compatible. It also doesn't make you respect a person; can you honestly say that even now, with the power of hindsight, and knowing that you _did _have genuine feelings for her, that you came to respect her as an equal, with her intelligence level being significantly beneath yours?"

Brian thought about it for a few seconds and had to answer truthfully. "No. But can you just…tell me how I'm supposed to find the right person? Enough with criticizing my past relationships. You're starting to remind me of my friend, Stewie. He's always running down the women I date, telling me I should hold out for more, that someday I'll find my true soul mate."

"That's sound advice." The doctor nodded approvingly. "It sounds like Stewie is a good friend to you."

"Uh, yeah, he's- he's a great friend, actually," said Brian, smiling momentarily with fond thoughts of Stewie, before his mind got back on the topic of discussion. He was about to point out that with his short life span, it wasn't like he had all the time in the world to 'wait' for love, when Dr. Sharpe remarked,

"Seems like he cares about you very much."

Brian chuckled and rolled his eyes. "In all honesty, I think he has a bit of a crush on me."

Dr. Sharpe's eyebrows rose at this. "Is that so?" She added some more to her notes. "Maybe you should just go out with this Stewie person, then."

"Yeah, right!" Brian laughed out loud. "That's funny, Doctor, but I'm not gay. Not that there's anything _wrong _with being gay, of course."

"Hmmm," the doctor murmured. She chewed contemplatively on the end of her pen. The seconds ticked by seemingly abnormally slowly as Dr. Sharpe gave Brian a long, appraising look. She stopped chewing her pen and tapped it against her knee, speaking as though choosing her words carefully, "You've…_never _been sexually attracted to another male, or had a homosexual experience in your life before?"

Brian felt his mouth fall open slightly when he realized that she wasn't joking. Wh- where the fuck was she getting this from? What the hell kind of vibe was he giving out today? Everyone knew he loved the ladies!

"No. Never," he answered firmly, definitively, ignoring the strange, prickly feeling he suddenly got at the base of his spine as he did so. "Why would you even ask?"

Dr. Sharpe shrugged elaborately, arms extended widely out to the sides, palms up, shoulders arching up all the way to her ears, a doubtful expression on her face. "I think you have inclinations. I think you need to sleep with a guy."

Brian couldn't do more than to carry on gawping at her, opening and shutting his mouth repetitively, wanting to say something but nothing coming out, before the timer on the psychologist's desk began to ring shrilly, and Dr. Sharpe immediately stood to go to turn it off, then proceeded to the door, turning to Brian and saying, "It would appear that our session is over. It was nice meeting you, Brian." As she held the door open for him and ushered him out, she added with a calm, knowing smile,

"I hope you find what you're looking for."

_To be continued…_

**Reviews are greatly appreciated! **


	2. Maui Zowie!

**A/N: Something happens in this chapter that I bluntly refuse to apologize for. And I think you can probably guess what that something is going to be, when I tell that it's sexual in nature. And to look at the pairing. And this isn't a "future fic". **

**It's similar to a particular scene in my fic **_**Years of Our Family (**_**except in** this **fic, the sex does absolutely happen)**_**, **_**which I know freaked a few people out, so I figured I'd give you fair warning, even though it's just the lead-up to the sex. It's not a lemon, or even a lime.**

**And besides…**

**You look me in the eyes (well, I guess you can't really **_**do **_**that, seeing as you're just reading this off a computer screen :P) and tell me, knowing the show, that it's completely out of the realm of possibility that something like this could happen! After all the innuendo and "questionable" situations regarding B&S in episodes over the years, and especially in light of newer episodes such as **_**Go, Stewie, Go**_, **where a crossdressing Stewie excites Brian and gets a grip on his junk, and **_**Brian and Stewie, **_**where Brian FRIGGIN' LICKS STEWIE'S ASS! **

***wipes sweaty forehead with back of hand* Whew! Okay, rant over. **

**Disclaimer: I do not, never have, and never will own Family Guy.**

**Chapter Two: Maui Zowie!**

When Brian returned to the house it seemed to be deserted. _That's right, tonight there was supposed to be a big luau down on the beach,_ he remembered. _Which is just as well; I have no intention of joining them, and now I'll have some time alone to decompress._

Brian moved over to the counter, standing on a chair to reach the top of it, and started to fix himself a drink. Just then, he heard the very light pitter-patter of feet on the linoleum behind him and looked over his shoulder to see Stewie standing there.

"Stewie- what are you doing here by yourself?"

Stewie rolled his eyes. "My ever-responsible parentals assumed- without checking to make certain- that _you_ were going to stay here and watch me. They didn't see you leave. I, of course, wasn't allowed to go to the luau as I'm far too young to stay up that late; I was supposed to be asleep hours ago, so shame on you, Brian for not putting me to bed. Anyway, I'm perfectly fine with having to stay behind. Although I _would _have gotten a kick out of seeing if the Fat Man gets mistaken for the giant pig that's meant to be roasted and finds himself on a skewer over the fire, I was most anxious to avoid seeing Meg in a grass skirt participating in the hula contest."

"Oh, well, I'm kind of glad it's just you here, anyway," Brian admitted, moving the cocktail shaker swiftly back and forth, then pouring the expertly-blended mélange into a martini glass. "I'm in no mood to put up with the nonsense that comes with having the others around."

"Where have you been?" asked Stewie, all curiosity as he leaned against a table leg and watched as Brian dismounted the chair extra-carefully so as not spill his drink.

Brian sipped at his martini and let out a sigh of content. "Let's sit down and I'll tell ya."

"Come on, we can go hang out in my room," Stewie suggested, tugging on Brian's paw to lead him out of the kitchen. Brian, however, having an afterthought, loosed himself from Stewie's grip.

"Just a sec." And he hopped back onto the chair, getting down the bottle of Jack to supplement his martini; after the week he'd had, and particularly after what Dr. Sharpe had subjected him to today, just a little nightcap wasn't going to cut it. He needed to hit the bottle.

**BREAK!**

Stewie's semi-open bedroom window let in a warm, temperate breeze that caused the curtains to flutter open, allowing Brian to see the hypnotic sway of the palms trees outside and how the ebony skies cradled the most brilliant white luminous stars he had ever seen. It was another in a series of gorgeous nights since they'd been in Maui, but the first that Brian had looked upon at length. Not that it was doing much to alleviate his troubles. Although why should he be letting himself get all bent out of shape over that sham psychologist's diagnosis…and prescription? She was clearly a quack who didn't know what the fuck she was talking about.

"I'm waiting, Dog."

"Huh?" Brian gave a start and realized he'd been spacing out.

Stewie made a noise of annoyance, drumming his stubby baby fingers against his knee. "You said you were going to tell me where you went today!"

"Oh, I don't want to talk about that right now," said Brian, brushing off the suggestion and opening the Jack. The martini glass lay discarded on the carpet. He chugged some whiskey, spilling a little down his chin, which he wiped carelessly away with the back of his paw. "Why don't you tell me what you got up to today instead?"

The child was all too eager to fulfill this request, leaping up and bounding over to the bureau, yanking open the bottom drawer, and retrieving something wrapped in a pretty, embroidered silk scarf. He brought it over to Brian and peeled back the fabric to show the dog a dried sponge (as in the oceanic animal, not the synthetic kind used for cleaning), and starfish that Lois had bought for him at a gift stand. Apparently, the little maniac was under the impression that what he had in his possession were the actual dehydrated corpses of cartoon characters Spongebob Squarepants and his sidekick, Patrick. And this made him exceptionally pleased for some reason.

"Those bumptious idiots finally got what was coming to them!" Stewie quipped gleefully.

As Brian sat there, gulping down the contents of the whiskey bottle and growing steadily drunker, he found Stewie's antics much more entertaining than he normally would. Stewie caught on to this and took full advantage, even using the opportunity to put on a little show for Brian, grabbing a ukulele and strumming it as he sang a version of Tiny Tim's _Tiptoe Through the Tulips _that was even more horrid and out-of-tune than the original, but sounded fine to Brian's ears.

_"...And if I kiss you in the garden, in the moonlight, will you pardon me? Come tiptoe through the tulips with meee!" _Stewie finished with gusto.

"Hurray! Bravo! Bravo!" Brian clapped his hands together energetically and grinned drunkenly from ear to ear as the baby made his way back over to him.

"Listen. Brian." Stewie slid back down the wall and plopped down next to Brian once more, patting the dog on the leg. "Whoever this girl is, I know that you're regretting having to leave her, but sometimes, you know, a fling is a fling, that's all it's meant to be. You appreciate your time together and you move on. Take heart, somebody you'll find somebody, and it'll last. Somebody…closer to home."

"The girl?" Brian questioned.

"Yes. Plenty more where she came from, and you can take your pick of any of 'em, buddy, 'cause you're the best!"

Brian gave a sloshed smile. "Aw, shucks, kid, you really _are_ sweet sometimes, you know that?" He reached an arm around the tot's shoulders and pressed Stewie to him in a quick side-hug. Before he released him, he drug his wide, flat tongue wetly across the expanse of Stewie's cheek.

Stewie dissolved into giggles. "_Brian_!" he gasped.

Brian's already heavily-lidded eyes drooped further and he rubbed the back of his neck somewhat self-consciously. "What? Dogs do that."

"_You_ don't."

"Well, maybe I just…wanted to." He peeped up at Stewie, smiling sheepishly.

Stewie hesitated, his eyes lingering on Brian's, unsure but intrigued. Then he simply cracked a small grin and shrugged, mumbling, "Whatever, man."

Brian chuckled and rested his head back against the wall. "There is no girl."

Stewie blinked. "No girl?" he asked, surprised.

"No girl," he repeated, slurring his words a bit, looking at Stewie dotingly but with a faint sadness as well. "Only-only you."

"Only…me?" the child repeated haltingly, timidly, eyes widening. He squirmed as though in slight discomfort and glanced away. But Brian's finger found its way beneath the child's chin, tipping it up and gently coaxing Stewie's face back around toward his own.

Brian's paw moved to Stewie's cheek and bestowed upon it a feather light caress as he leaned in and rested his forehead against the baby's, humming to himself. He then pulled back infinitesimally, leaving a scant few inches between their faces.

"Brian?" Stewie whispered questioningly a mere second before the gap closed. The meeting of their lips was soft and could've been called almost chaste in nature, except for the spark that flared to life within both at just that grazing contact, and the tension in the air that was nothing if not sexual.

The kiss did not last long. As if by mutual agreement, they both ended it at the same time, and pulled back a bit to look at one another. Stewie's tongue tentatively emerged to lick his own lips, chasing the taste that Brian had left on them.

Stewie's little hands rested on either side of Brian's muzzle. "Brian…" he said, slightly dazedly. He seemed addicted to saying the dog's name. He trailed off, sounding as though he would say more, but then changed his mind, deciding that one word, that one name, said enough. Said it all.

Brian brought his lips to Stewie's again, the contact much more solid this time. It seemed something had snapped, Brian's mouth pressed hard and feverishly against his and Stewie applied the same pressure back, his hands still on the dog's muzzle, while one of Brian's snaked around to cup the back of the kid's neck, the other landing on Stewie's waist. They kissed repeatedly, each one deeper than the last, kisses of reckless abandon and mutual yearning. Stewie felt like he was sort of taking advantage since Brian was drunk, but while his blood was being stirred in this most enthralling way, he could not prevent himself from being an opportunist. These chances to make out with Brian- the unrequited love of his life- did not present themselves often, so how could he be blamed for wanting to indulge himself, how could he be expected to quit the embrace? Besides, if Brian remembered this in the morning, perhaps it would serve as a catalyst for finally moving their relationship forward.

Stewie had never been kissed thusly before, and it was fast overwhelming him. It made his mind go all hazy, and he felt himself becoming hot, increasingly hotter all over, so why his body should be crying out to be closer to Brian's, which was even more heated, covered as it was in a cozy fur coat, was a mystery. Still, Stewie grabbed hold of Brian's collar forcefully and hauled him in up against his own self so snugly that their forms were practically fused together. Soon they were both lowering themselves onto the carpet, Brian coming down on top of Stewie, and the latter welcomed the warm, solid, weight of the dog's body pinning his own down, but still the child needed something more, although he wasn't quite sure what that "more" was. He attempted to communicate his needs to Brian:

"Oh- oh, Brian! I- I need…"

"I know, I know, shhh, it's okay."

Together they moved the mattress out of the crib and placed it on the floor, and climbed atop it eagerly. Stewie laid down and reached out his arms to Brian, who, bending over him, hastily reclaimed them…

**BREAK!**

Brian slowly blinked his eyes open. Bright rays of sunlight in his direct line of vision, he turned his head to the side and groaned. The dappled sunshine played upon the carpet and his body felt warm, relaxed, sated.

Sated. This was post-sex-waking-up. But who had he…

His mind was assaulted with images so disturbing that Brain's stomach plummeted like a skydiver out an airplane, hurtling toward the earth…and then the chute didn't open.

No. It couldn't be. He would never, never in a million years do something so appalling and depraved…

"Ah, my lover boy is finally awake, I see," came a well-known posh English voice from a few feet away.

Brian clambered to his hind legs in a panic, his hands fisted in the white fur on top of his head, pulling at it harshly, but because what he was going through internally was far more agonizing, he felt no pain. "Oh my God! Oh my FUCKING-"

"_Shhh!" _Stewie shushed him vehemently. "Lois is up, she's in the kitchen making breakfast. So don't make a racket and bring her in here, okay?"

Brian lowered his voice to a loud, panic-stricken whisper. "Oh. My. God. Oh my FUCKING God!"

"Well, good morning to you, too," the baby drawled from behind the bars of his crib. Propping himself up on an elbow, he lay on his side looking down at Brian, his left leg crossed over his right one, a casual pose. He was wearing his feetie pajamas and a smile.

He'd had his virginity taken at the age of one last night and he was fucking _smiling._

Brian wanted to vomit, he did, so much, but besides the fact that his hangover wasn't bad enough for it (he'd had too much experience drinking), for some inexplicable reason, the memory of he and Stewie laying in each other's arms, being intimate together _didn't _- and it _should_, goddamn it!- make him feel nauseous. What it did do was make him feel like the most twisted of deviants, consume him with guilt and make him hate himself with a passion. Needing something to latch onto before his head exploded, he allowed himself to become distracted by what Stewie had just said.

"Wait- so- so Lois is just in the kitchen, just…making breakfast like normal?" Brian inquired a tad perplexedly. "You mean- they haven't noticed us? Didn't Lois come and peek in on you when they all got back last night…or this morning, at least?" Brian shook his head and snorted, saying sarcastically, "You've got great parents."

"I know, haven't I," responded Stewie with equal sarcasm. He yawned and sat up. "No one saw us night- as luck would have it, I awoke as the passel of idiots was coming in, and Lois and the Fat Man were so inebriated, they'd barely staggered through the doorway before they simply passed out in the living room. As for the two uncouth cretins I call my brother and sister, they went straight to their room. So I came back in here, shoved you off the mattress, returned it to my crib, cleaned myself up, and put on my jammie jams."

Stewie stood up in the crib and stared down at him, his enormous eyes shining with some unplaceable emotion, his mouth stretched into an almost-blissful smile. He stuck an arm through a gap in the bars of his crib, reaching down and caressing Brian's ear between his thumb and pointer finger.

"So it finally happened with us, huh?"

Brian had to get out of there. Now. He was shaking from head to toe and recoiled from Stewie's touch, smacking the tot's small, warm, pudgy hand away, and backing up with his gaze still locked on it, as though it was the foulest of objects, until he reached the doorway of the bedroom, turned around, and made a run for it.

He skidded to a halt just inside the kitchen, where Lois- looking a little hungover but otherwise the same as always- was calmly setting the table, unaware that the world had ended last night, cracked in half and sucked Brian down to the bowels of hell.

"Oh, good morning, Bri-"

His moniker wasn't fully out of her mouth before Brian had bolted past her, shooting down the hall at such a fast pace that he was practically a blur, sprinting out the front door and letting it slam shut behind him.

**BREAK!**

Stewie jogged along the shoreline, following the dog's footprints in the sand, getting a little out of breath, as Brian's tracks had led him a fair distance from the beach house. He'd dressed before going in search of the dog, so he was now wearing a pair of blue shorts and a tropical print shirt, red with yellow flowers.

He reached a decidedly lonely stretch of the beach, where nobody else was around but the dog, standing in the surf, water sloshing around his feet up to his knees, looking out to sea.

"Brian! There you are! What's with splitting on me like that? Made me feel like a two-dollar whore," Stewie demanded in a huff of displeasure.

"Go away, Stewie." Brian forced the command out through gritted teeth, his back to the infant, trying to make it sound steely. But he couldn't keep the shaking out of his voice entirely, and he knew Stewie would be able to tell that he was crying.

Stewie sighed, saying as though Brian's attitude was a nuisance, "I was afraid this might happen. You're feeling guilty, aren't you?"

Brian let out a bark of dry, humorless laughter. "Well, I should _hope_ I'd feel guilty!" he cried, turning at last to face the baby, stepping out of the water. "What I did last night was utterly reprehensible!"

Stewie shook his head, drawing nearer to the dog. "It wasn't," he said softly. "There wasn't anything wrong about it. It was very natural, and you've no reason to beat yourself up about it."

Brian gawked at the infant. "H-how can you be so…_flippant_ about this?"

Stewie looked back at Brian solemnly. "Oh, I am anything but _flippant_ about it, Brian. I regard what happened last night with the utmost seriousness."

"You are a child. An _infant_. I committed an act of pedophilia with you." Brian spoke in a flat voice, wiping away the ferociously repentant tears. "When it finally impacts you fully… just what transpired last night…what we did…what _I_ did to_ you_…you're going to want to kill me. And I wouldn't blame you one bit if you decided to follow through, to act on that urge."

"Oh, Brian, I will _not_," Stewie protested, almost scornfully. "I could never want that, and after all, it wasn't as if you raped me. I was just as much a party to it as you were. I can't very well lay blame on you for something I voluntarily _chose _to do, can I?"

"_I_ SHOULD'VE KNOWN BETTER, THOUGH!" Brian boomed, letting his overwrought emotions take control of him. "I _do_ know better! I'm a lowdown, disgusting scumbag who- who ought to be locked away forever for disregarding every sense of morality and- and…You're so far from being even remotely ready to have sex, and now…now it's too late! You'll never be able to change the fact that your first time was when you were one year old, with the family dog."

"I don't _want_ to change it," Stewie passionately avowed. "I wouldn't change what happened last night for the _world._"

Brian put his paws over his ears, gnashing his teeth. He pushed so hard on his ears that he could hear the blood coursing through them make the sound like the roar of the ocean. A real ocean was spread out majestically right in front of him, as far as the eyes could see, but Brian was left less than enraptured, he took no comfort from the breathtaking vista. This place was supposed to be a paradise; for him it'd been nothing but a land of nightmares.

He took his paws off his ears, and Stewie started talking to him again:

"And it's not just a lust-type thing, either…what we did was beautiful to me because…" Stewie paused, and gnawed on his lower lip, his nervousness and vulnerability palpable. "When we were in the bank vault…and I told you that I loved you…I made a point of specifying that it wasn't a "hey, let's have an underpants party" kind of love. But I only said that so I wouldn't freak you out, and because it wasn't the time and place. The reality of the situation is…it really…_isn't_ just a platonic kind of love I hold for you…Brian, I'm _in_ love with you."

Brian raised his gaze fleetingly to Stewie's and said, wholly without emotion, "Yeah, I know."

Shock flashed in Stewie's eyes, to be replaced by outrage in a matter of seconds. "You know? You _know_?" His voice angry and climbing higher in pitch.

"Come on, Stewie, of course I know, it's a bit obvious," Brian scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

Stewie knew what it meant if Brian had known about his feelings before now and had simply chosen to ignore them. It meant he didn't feel the same way. The child bit his lip and clenched his tiny fists at his sides, ducking his head, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, seemingly overcome with disappointed anger. He tilted his head to the side and stared at the dog, his voice mainly even but with a wounded undertone to it as he said, "So that's that, then? I admit to you that I'm in love with you, _you, _in turn, admit you were already aware of the fact , and none of it means anything at all to you?"

Brian winced. "Stewie, please…" He sighed and shook his head. He tried to reason with the tyke: "Stewie, your…romantic feelings for me…that's not being in love like adults are in love. What you feel for me is a crush, a silly little infatuation, you'll get over it someday…I've been waiting for you to get over it." But had he? Even as he said it, Brian felt that his last sentence had the stamp of a lie on it, and he examined, for the first time, really, just how he felt about Stewie's feelings for _him_. _Did_ he want Stewie to get over his crush? Why did the prospect of Stewie coming to look at him purely as a friend, now that he took the time to think about it, leave him feeling somewhat hollow?

Was it that he, being perpetually lovelorn, liked having someone mooning over _him _for once, and that it was someone with such fastidious tastes as Stewie's only added to the ego-stroking? Certainly he wasn't that vain…

_The alternative would be that you don't want Stewie to give up on you because you secretly return his affections, _a frightening inner voice pointed out, and Brian hastily and gladly decided that he'd rather be arrogant than in love with a baby.

"Hey…hey, Stewie…" He murmured in a soft voice, not being able to stand seeing the kid so dejected. He took a step toward Stewie, reaching out to comfort him with a simple, affectionate touch on the arm, but the tyke swatted him away.

"_What_, Brian?" Stewie glared at him through gathering tears. "It _hurts_." His hand formed a fist and thumped his small chest, over his heart, showing _where_ it hurt, "when somebody belittles your feelings, you know?"

Boy, did he. Brian knew all too well, it had been happening to he himself for much of his life. One close look at the baby's eyes and Brian was promptly ashamed of saying that Stewie's affections for him amounted to no more than a mere crush. He knew Stewie as well as he knew- well, he _used_ to think he knew himself pretty well, but lately he wasn't so certain. But Stewie, anyway, he knew down to the child's marrow. While they didn't always see eye to eye, while they were often in conflict about something, they had a powerful connection between them, and with this powerful connection, all he had to do was search the kid's eyes and he knew; no puppy love (pun not intended) this; what Stewie felt for him was as deep and as true as any adult love could be.

He wondered what he would do if this _was_ an adult Stewie, admitting his love for him. Brian had always said that he sought a mate who was intelligent and passionate. Well, Stewie indisputably fit the bill on both counts.

_Why was he thinking like this? As much as he'd grown to love Stewie as a person, he absolutely, positively did _not _want _that_ type of relationship with him!_

"I was very confused last night," Brian endeavored to explain. "Yesterday…the shrink that I went to see, Dr. Sharpe…she told me she thought I had gay tendencies…or…_bisexual_ tendencies, at least."

Stewie's jaw dropped down sharply, virtually scraping the sand. "She did not!" The tears of rejection immediately took a backseat to the amused incredulity this disclosure of Brian's evidently provoked in him. "For _ages _now, I've been wondering if I could turn you. It seemed like more and more of a possibility all the time. So who deserves the credit I wonder: the perhaps-aptly-named Dr. Sharpe for making you conscious of a quality you've really always possessed? Or myself, for being so irresistible that you couldn't help yourself- your usual orientation be damned?" Stewie gave a cocky, playful grin.

"Neither! Nobody deserves any credit for anything, because I'm _not _attracted to guys, and I'm not attracted to you!"

Stewie ignored this and said thoughtfully, scratching his chin, "You know, some people say that everybody is bisexual to a certain degree. Have you ever heard of the Kinsey scale?"

"Yeah. Where're you on it?" Brian retorted snidely. "Just when I think you flame at an even higher temperature than Jasper, you turn around and get interested in a girl!"

"If I had any lingering doubts about my sexuality, Brian, they were removed last night."

"Great," Brian muttered, giving him a highly sarcastic thumbs-up. So now Stewie could blame him for turning out gay, never mind the vast multitude of gay stereotypes the kid had been exhibiting for seemingly eons.

The dog exhaled heavily, hating having to hurt his friend, but at the same time frustrated that the kid _still _wasn't getting it. "Stewie…you must know that it's never going to work out between us. You're only a baby, and by the time you're an adult, I'll have been dead in the ground for _years_. And we definitely can't be together _now; _our family, society, everything would be against us. And for good reason: a romantic relationship between us would be just plain _wrong_."

Uninvited, a flashback from last night entered into Brian's mind. He didn't actually remember too many specifics. All he could recall was how trusting and…responsive Stewie had been during the act. He didn't know when the last time was that he'd been with someone who'd reacted so passionately to being touched by him; there were a lot of women out there who apparently thought all they had to do to be good in bed was lie there. But even though Stewie hadn't had a _clue,_ he had good instincts, obviously, in how to make love. Those images that were branded into his memory were full of Stewie kissing and nibbling on his neck, running his hands though his fur, lifting his hips to match Brian's thrusts. Just basically giving as good as he got.

_Stop this now, Brian! _the dog berated himself severely once he caught himself again thinking these things he was a fucking sicko to dwell on.

Brian cleared his throat. "There is simply _no way _for us to be together as a couple."

The much-celebrated ocean air Brian did not find refreshing whatsoever in his current state; it seemed to burn in his lungs. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to be the most upset about anymore. That the therapist he saw yesterday thought he had latent homosexual tendencies? That after hearing this, he was such a sick bastard that he'd screwed the literal baby of the Griffin family? That Stewie was in love with him, and it was going to end in heartbreak for the poor kid, and ruin their friendship? That he could see a universe in which he'd be happy to be part of a couple in which the other half was Stewie? That that wasn't the universe they lived in, so the possibility of a romantic relationship was nonexistent?

When he looked back to Stewie, the baby was watching him with a look of cunning in his eye.

"What if I said that I did have a way?"

Something about Stewie's attitude made Brian stiffen. He suddenly got a mysterious but convincing inkling that the question was not a hypothetical. It made him nervous. "Wh-what…_way_ could you possibly have?" the canine spluttered.

"Let's just say that I did," said Stewie, mouth forming a thin, serious line, though his eyes had a peculiar glow to the them, like he knew something Brian didn't. "I love you, Brian, with every fiber of my being. Let me make you happy like you deserve to be. Like you'd make me the happiest fellow on earth if you'd just accept me. We are bloody _perfect_ for each other! And I believe that deep down…you know that. So let's just say that there was a way for us to be together…together in a perfectly ethical way. Would that be something you'd be interested in? Hm? Couldn't you find it in your heart to give us a chance?" He implored.

Finally, when it appeared he would receive no answer from the dumbstruck dog, and that silence could most likely be taken for a 'no', the child looked at him once more with a totally destroyed expression, turned, and began to walk away back down the beach.

Then he heard Brian call after him:

"Stewie- wait!"

His voice was tremulous and raw.

The kid stopped dead in his tracks.

"I…think…I think I could."

_To be continued…_

**Okay, in spite of the somewhat defensive tone of the Author's Note at the beginning of this chapter, I sincerely want to thank you guys for reviewing/fav'ing/adding updates for this story. It's just the beginning, and I love having that early interest shown to me! :D **

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	3. Us

**Disclaimer: I do not, never have, and never will own Family Guy.**

**Chapter Three: Us**

Brian and Stewie were walking back to the beach house (Stewie beaming at Brian the entire time, Brian looking steadfastly ahead), when they glimpsed Lois walking toward them from the direction they were heading.

"There you two are! Where on earth have you been, you sure beat a hasty retreat out of there this morning. You missed breakfast, but we all decided to go out for a nice family lunch, which we're leaving for in about an hour. C'mon, Stewie, let's get you back to the house and cleaned up and presentable." She stooped to collect her youngest child. The one Brian- albeit with certain provisos that the dog had no idea how they could be met- had a short time ago agreed to enter into a relationship with.

As Brian trudged along -tail literally between his legs- next to the woman with the baby in her arms, he couldn't even look at her. For Christ's sake, last night he'd slept with the infant she was presently cradling, how could he be expected to? While they walked, she made light chitchat that he could just barely respond to, and then only in mono-syllables. Fortunately, she didn't comment on his unsociability. He told himself glumly that he'd better get used to having this wall up between them. Between himself and Lois, himself and Peter…Chris…Meg.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

**BREAK!**

"Knock knock!" chimed Stewie as he stood in the doorway of what was actually his own room at the beach house, peeking in on Brian, who was getting out his suitcase and laying it open on the floor. "Hey. Hey there. Need any help packing?" the infant offered, crossing the threshold into the room.

Brian glanced up at him, then quickly back down again, a feeling of unsettledness washing over him. "Uh, not especially, no. The not-needing-to-wear-clothes thing really negates the tendency to pack a lot, you know?"

Stewie chuckled. "Oh, of course, of course." He sauntered on over to the suitcase and loitered there while Brian went around the room collecting the few items he'd brought with him to Hawaii, bringing them back one by one to deposit in the suitcase, all the while keeping his gaze aimed downward, refusing to look at the little child, whose presence was putting him seriously on edge.

Lunch a few hours ago had been the most awkward family meal Brian had ever endured. With him being unable to say a word to anyone and the baby silently flirting with him across the table the whole time, making googlie-eyes and batting his lashes.

Brian dropped a book inside the suitcase and then closed the lid, securing the clasps.

"All done?"

"Yep."

The next thing Brian knew, the baby had thrown his arms around the dog's furry neck and was kissing him full on the mouth.

Brian tore his lips from Stewie's in a hurry. "Woah, woah, woah!" he shouted shoving Stewie away and stumbling backward, tripping over the open suitcase in the process and landing flat on his ass.

The child sent him a most affronted look. "What's the blasted idea?"

Brian pried himself up off the floor. "S-Stewie, I really don't, uh, think we should be doing anything like that until…circumstances change. Significantly."

"I only wanted a little kiss! It wasn't going to escalate into anything X-rated!" Stewie bristled. "Yeesh!"

"It doesn't matter; what if somebody were to walk in?"

Though Stewie continued to look unhappy, he conceded, "Yes, I suppose that _wouldn't_ be the most prudent way of clueing them into our _amour_. Most likely they'd fly off the handle and kick you out, making it hard for me to see you and I would _like_ to effect the transformation soon as we get home."

Brian squinted suspiciously. "Trans-'_transformation_'? What do you mean by that?" he asked, uncertain what the tot referred to. His sexuality again? Brian still fiercely maintained that Dr. Sharpe was a whackjob who had it all wrong. It was a freak accident, pure and simple, that he found himself falling for Stewie.

"Your transformation from a lowly flea-bitten mutt into a respectable _human _gentleman," stated Stewie, his eyes glittering, his voice trembling with a barely-contained excitement. "I've got a machine that can do it."

Brian stared, unblinking, at Stewie in unadulterated incredulity. His brain refused to wrap around what he'd just been told. He was frozen in shock and in the end all he could do was blurt out stupidly, "But I _like _being a dog!"

His entire life was being upended. No. That wasn't the right way to put it. His life hadn't been set on end, rather, it had simply ended, period. Life as he knew it was over. And a full-blown reincarnation awaited him back home, it would seem.

Stewie looked at Brian in disbelief. "Oh, really? You _like _being treated as a second class citizen_, _having a life expectancy of only around fifteen years, not being able to see in color, and being about three and a half feet shorter than every adult human?" he questioned scornfully.

Brian said nothing; of course the kid was right. Brian had oftentimes wondered why he had been born a dog and cursed the unfairness of the universe, but then he'd never anticipated being offered the chance to change his species. Now that he had been, it rattled him, he didn't know how to take it all in.

"Brian, it's the only way!" Stewie went on. "You're going to be a human with the lifespan of a human, and I- well, I'm going to make myself older by dint of another machine I drew up the blueprints for last night. I'll be eighteen when all's said and done, a consenting adult."

"Y-you- I can't let you do that to yourself!" Brian cried, flabbergasted. "You can't simply throw away seventeen years of your life as if they don't matter! No! I won't let you!" He stomped his foot to illustrate how distressing he found this idea. (A feeble, juvenile gesture, when he really wanted to put his fist through the wall. Though, he supposed, that wouldn't exactly be a sensible thing to do, either)

"Have you thought about what you're giving up, hm?" he continued to rage. "Your whole goddamn childhood! Kindergarten, junior high, high school! Learning to ride a bike without training wheels; summer camp; and probably in your case, joining some youth ribbon dancing troupe at the Y. Growing up is supposed to be a gradual process, not something that you force to happen at your will by putting yourself through some crazy machine!"

Stewie was detachedly watching the clock on the wall. "Are you done now?" he asked in a bored tone as he turned back to glance at Brian. "Look, Brian, I appreciate you being all noble and wanting me to have a proper childhood and all, but my mind's made up on the subject. The ends justify the means. This change is absolutely going to take place."

"Because of the gargantuan mistake I made last night!" Brian shouted, deeply agitated. "If it hadn't of happened, you wouldn't have this compulsion to do this asinine thing!"

"How can you call it asinine? Don't you know by know what you mean to me? My 'childhood'," Stewie spoke the term with derision, "is nothing to me. I've never really been a child mentally, so I shouldn't have a _child_hood. Giving it up so that I can be with you was the easiest choice to make in the world!"

It was selfish and strange, the tiny flip Brian's heart did when Stewie said this. He didn't want to be pleased and touched to be the object of Stewie's blind obsession. But damn if he wasn't. He was such a bastard.

"How do you plan on explaining all this to the family, huh?" he demanded, switching tactics. "Why _I'm_ suddenly a different species, and _you're_ suddenly seventeen years older?"

"I'm going to tell them the truth," said Stewie equably. "What else is there to tell them? I know what to expect as regards the aftermath, and I'm prepared for that. I love you, you said you were willing to give us a chance, and now nothing will get in the way of our being together!"

And that summed it up. If his parents had to find out about his secret lab, and by those means, finally discover his secret life as a infant super genius, so be it. If he had to lose seventeen years of his life, the carefree years of childhood, and trade them in to face all the stresses, responsibilities, and tribulations of an adulthood he was not ready for, so be that, too. Everything else was just a price that would have to be paid, an expendability for the sake of the all-important, huge, mythic, "_Us" _that was what the child currently wanted most in the world. This thing was bigger than both of them, and Brian felt extremely intimidated by it.

**BREAK!**

On the flight home, Brian had been relieved to have Chris as a seatmate, while Stewie sat with Meg in the row behind. He wouldn't have been able to abide having to listen to any more about what was going to happen to them when they got home. He didn't want to think about their imminent extreme makeovers, or about the aftermath, the family's reactions, and how he was supposed to go about having a real, romantic relationship with Stewie. Especially since (and this was another reason he was happy to find himself seated next to Chris, even though conversing with the blonde-haired Griffin child was about as intellectually stimulating as chatting up one of his, Brian's, fleas) he really didn't know how to interact with Stewie when there was this whole new facet to their relationship. It was stupid and foolish, but Brian actually felt awkward around Stewie (_Stewie! Of all people!_), now that he viewed him as a love interest. He honestly had his doubts that he would even have any idea how to talk to Stewie at all any more.

He felt as if he owed too much to Stewie, and yet it was nothing that he'd asked for, plus, he wasn't even sure if he wanted it. It was making him feel awkward and resentful. He felt _pledged _to Stewie, and panicked. Stewie had concocted this whole insane scheme, created the technology to see it through to fruition, just so that he and Brian could be more to each other than friends and fellow members of the Griffin family. How could Brian ever leave Stewie after that, should the relationship sour, as it most likely would? Surely the rest of the family would never speak to him again after he took up romantically with Stewie, and Brian would be damned if that kind of sacrifice would be made for nothing. It would be unbearable to cut ties with the only Griffin he had left. He might as well be going home to be _married _to Stewie. It wasn't an exaggeration to equate what he was about to do with that drastic a step. Their romance would have to be permanent (something Brian couldn't conceive of as feasible) or else they would exit from it with a hell of a lot of emotional carnage.

So why was he willing to risk it? Why did he still feel like, no matter what, he simply _had _to try?

Upon their return, without further delay, Peter had headed off to the Drunken Clam to pound a few with Quagmire and Joe. Lois was too wearied to go to the hassle of preparing a large dinner, and so merely warmed up a family-size lasagna T.V. dinner which the group- tired and hungry from their plane ride- ate quickly and in silence. Chris and Meg finished and then lumbered off to their respective rooms to take their rests. Lois carried Stewie upstairs for his nap, reminding her youngest child that he hadn't slept at all on the plane, and brooked no opposition though he thrashed in her arms trying to get free, casting impatient glances over her shoulder at Brian while he was being carted away.

For awhile, the entire household was in slumber. Brian went into the living room, lay down upon the couch and drifted off, too, until, about two hours later when he'd scarcely woken up, Lois strode into the living room, her two teenage offspring trailing behind her, and her purse slung over her shoulder.

"Brian? I'm going to take Chris and Meg out for frozen yogurt. Keep an eye on Stewie, okay?"

"Uh-"

"Great. See ya in a bit!" Lois tossed to him over her shoulder, and the door closed behind her and two out of three of her brood.

"It is time, Dog," an ominous voice intoned from the direction of the stairs.

**BREAK!**

Brian stepped into Stewie's room in an almost trance-like state.

"Here. Drink this," ordered Stewie, pressing a glass into Brian's paw.

Brian accepted it and obeyed without comment, without thought. He tossed back the drink, downing it in one gulp, then his whole body shuddered and he made a face of disgust, gagging. "Oh, God, that's nasty! What the hell was it?"

"What you've just ingested is my own personally-developed formula to halve what is called your 'real-age'. You may have been alive for eight years, but on the inside you now have the health and vitality of a dog half your age; you are now four years old. Or twenty-eight, in dog years. And that's the age you shall be when you exit the machine. Were you to enter the machine without drinking it, you would emerge a fifty-six-year-old."

"Stewie, that's incredible!" Brian cried in blank astonishment, ignoring the foul taste that still lingered on his tongue. "You mean you've developed a drink that can cut a dog's age in half? Is there a limit to how many times one can take it? Or can you continue to take it over and over again, continue to extend your life? You must go public with it, so that all dogs can take advantage of it!"

"Yes, yes, but in the meantime…"

Stewie moved toward his toy box and pulled on the baseball bat to open the entrance to his secret lair. Then he traveled over to the little safe in the corner of his room and withdrew from it a remote control. He pushed a button on the remote and a contraption that looked something like a smaller version of the time machine he'd once built but on wheels built came rolling out of the lair and stopped in front of them.

Stewie proffered Brian a handheld mirror with the instructions, "Take one last look at your dog-self."

Brian took a long, _long_ look, clutching the mirror with shaking paws. From now on when he looked at his reflection, a human's features would be there to greet him. No more white fur; cold, wet nose; and red collar. Things that had defined him probably more than anything thing. He could feel the tears welling up in his eyes.

"I'm going to miss you, old buddy," he murmured.

Stewie stood behind him, and they caught each other's eye in the mirror. The child gave the dog a comforting scratch behind the ear.

"I'm going to miss him, too."

It was easy, took probably not even a minute, and relatively painless. His retinas burned briefly when the inside of the machine filled up with a blinding, dazzling light, but he quickly squeeze his eyes shut tightly to guard against it. First a strong current of energy flowed through him; his body tingled form head to toe, it was like it was made up of millions upon millions of bubbles. Then that stopped, and he became conscious of his limbs being stretched, and his neck, and his torso, but it didn't hurt in the slightest, his form had taken on an abnormal elasticity. After this stage was complete, he felt his body solidify once more and from behind his eyelids, he sensed the intense light vanish. The door to the machine opened and Brian blundered out and for a long moment just stood there in the middle of the room, muddleheaded, his eyes unseeing, focused on nothing.

"Oh, my. I see congratulations are in order for you," Stewie spoke suddenly into the silence, both awe and amusement present in his voice. Brian looked over at him to find Stewie's gaze anchored firmly to his privates.

"Stewie, for God's sake!" growled Brian, clasping his palms over his crotch modestly. But then, suddenly, something else was screaming for his attention and ripped his preoccupation away from his own nudity (although he kept his hands firmly in place).

No more was everything, black, white, or a shade of gray in between. An enhanced sense of sight had come along with his recently achieved humanness. An overwhelming new ability was now here, the ability to see…

"Colors," he managed to choke out.

"Oh, yeah, _colors_," Stewie agreed, amused. "They're all new to you, huh?" He began to point at different objects in the room, assigning a name of a color to each of them. "Blue…" he informed Brian, pointing to the quilt in the crib, "… orange…" he dubbed a little chair, "…red…," he pointed to his own overalls, "…brown…," he indicated Rupert, "…pink," Stewie smirked, thrusting some type of clothing article at Brian as he pronounced this last color. "There. Cover yourself up."

Brian unfolded the item and inspected it with a frown. He'd heard pink called a 'girls' color' before, but even if he hadn't had this knowledge, even if he was still a dog, he would have been aware that what he currently holding in his hands- an undergarment similar to boxers- had been designed for persons of the female persuasion, embellished as they were with lots of frilly lace along the hems of the legs, and a cutesy bow on the front.

"So you knew this was going to happen, that I was going to come out of the machine buck-ass naked…" Brian grumbled in great irritation, even as he slipped the bloomers on. _Why the hell does Lois have these, anyway?, _Brian silently asked himself. _Is she part of some historical club that likes to dress up in late nineteenth century clothing?_ "…you couldn't have had some men's clothes ready for me?"

"Aw, but you look so pretty like this." Stewie smiled teasingly.

Brian pushed his lower lip outward in a pout and narrowed his eyes at the child, but left off the glare after a couple of moments to stare all around again at his surroundings. They were so incredibly crisper and much more vivid than what he'd been used to as a dog, so much brought to life by the colors that they left him feeling sick and giddy, though he was impossibly glad to see them.

Neither Brian nor Stewie had heard the footsteps coming up the stairs, but they heard Stewie's bedroom door open, both their heads rotating towards the noise, slack jawed at the new arrival: Lois.

At first, she only noticed Stewie.

"Oh, honey, you're awake! What happened to Brian, he was supposed to look after you, I swear, he can be so undependable some-" she let loose a little shriek and jumped as she caught sight of this man she had never seen before- a partially-nude man, at that- alone with her baby in his bedroom. "Stewie- who is this?" Her surprise shifted into anger the next second and she demanded, "What the hell is going on here?"

"Lois-" Brian began, taking a step forward, but his effort was lost when he realized he had nothing to add. Beyond the automatic utterance of her name, all words stuck in his throat. A simple explanation that would instantaneously calm her down wasn't forthcoming because it did not exist. He also felt rather unsteady on his new legs.

Stewie endeavored to intervene by marching over to place himself between his mother and Brian, but Lois brushed him aside protectively, her son's garbled attempts to pacify her going unheeded.

"Who the fuck are you, you pervert?" she boomed, advancing on Brian with her eyes on fire, looking extremely threatening and as though she would tear him limb from limb. "Did you break into my house to rape my son? Why are you in his bedroom in- in- YOU'RE WEARING MY DRAWERS, YOU SICKO!"

Brian cowered from her, exclaiming, "Lois, please!", putting his arms up, shielding himself from the wrath of the woman. "It's me! Brian!"

She'd recognized his voice; she stilled, rendered immobile, some unearthly phantasm passing through her. She whipped around and spotted the contrivance that had changed Brian from a humble pooch into a full-fledged homo sapien.

"What the hell is all this?"

Her head snapped back around and her eyes, disbelieving and a little frightened, found her son, who leveled an impassive gaze back at her. Lois then looked to the man who was Brian, who had been the family's loyal dog, and who now she plainly expected to supply her with some answers. He, however, could only say, eyeing the woman's tresses with a crinkled nose:

"_That's_ the color of your hair?"

_To be continued…_

**Please Review! :)**


	4. The Second Transformation

**Finally, an update! School (or more precisely, homework) really slows them down. If the time I spent out of school was really all my own, I'd be halfway finished with this fic by now, instead of merely on chapter 4 out of what is probably going to be about 15-20. Curses! :[ **

**Thanks for the reviews! :D (And favs, and alerts) Whenever I open a message that says I got one, it's like opening little packets of glitter that make my life sparkle. (Which, I'm aware, is a terribly dorky analogy, but it's also terribly apt ;P) Please, keep them coming!**

**Disclaimer: I do not, never have, and never will own Family Guy.**

**Chapter Four: The Second Transformation**

"Mom?" Meg could be heard calling, then the stairs shuddered as she ran up them. "Mom, what's going on? Is something wrong?" She burst into the room several seconds later. "We heard you yelling, what hap-" Her voice became stuck in her throat once she clamped eyes on the ostensible stranger in the room, the one who stood mostly unclothed, and she rather blatantly ogled him.

"Meg? Mom?" Chris now was the one to shout up to them, and when not an inhabitant of the room yelled back to answer him, he too clomped up the stairs (making them quake violently) and rushed into his baby brother's room. His eyes came to rest to on the half-naked object of everyone's attention and he deadpanned,

"Oh holy crap. What's going on in _here_?"

Meg finally turned from her lusty inspection of Brian and looking with bafflement to her mother interrogated, "Mom, who is this guy? Oh, my God, is he like your lover?" she squeaked, very visibly perturbed. "Mom, how could you do that to Dad? And more importantly, how do you have _two _guys when I don't even have _one_? Ugh, I hate my life! And he's so young, he's closer to my age, what is he doing with _you_?"

Lois didn't acknowledge the conclusion that her daughter had leapt to; she didn't take any offense at Meg's so readily assuming she was having an affair, or even her incredulity that she could get a young guy. In fact, Lois apparently couldn't spare the newcomers to the room even the briefest glance while her mind was still struggling to process what her reason deemed impossible.

She said in a benumbed, slightly robotic way, "This is Brian, kids."

"Alright, so his name's Brian," Meg said in a slow, patronizing voice, "But who _is _he?"

In that same odd voice as before, she replied, "Brian. Our dog. But not anymore."

Meg looked at her, quite justifiably, as though she had utterly lost her marbles, while Chris just looked blank.

"Kids, I-I think this is Brian," Lois repeated, this time with a more human quality to her voice, coming gradually out of her catatonic state. Her eyes took on a more lucid look. She gave a sharp, prompting nod to the man in front of her. "Right? Tell them."

Seriously, having legs this long, being up this high (though he noticed then that he was only as tall as Lois) was giving Brian vertigo-like symptoms, and he teetered toward the teenage Griffins very cautiously.

"Uh, h-hi, Chris and Meg," he stuttered, hesitantly raising a hand, moving it slightly side-to-side in a feeble way.

Meg's eyelids fluttered speedily in disbelief. "Say again?"

Brian cleared his throat. "I said, uh, hi."

"Y-you sound just like him!" Chris shrieked, pulling at his hair in alarm.

"I am him."

Chris, perhaps predictably, was immediately convinced. "Awesome! Good going, man!" he declared, fist-bumping with the man.

"But this is _insane_!" Meg insisted. "You can't _really_ be our family pet! How the hell did that happen?"

"Shut up, Meg," said Chris, rolling his eyes. "Nobody cares what you think."

Lois indicated the machine that neither of her two older children had evidently been aware of up until then. "There's your answer. I'd be willing to bet _that's _responsible."

Meg and Chris let out cries of astonishment as they dashed toward Stewie's dog-to-human transforming machine (though what knowledge of it they thought they would garner by running their hands along its outside surfaces, Brian had no idea).

In any case, their absorption by it was short-lived, Presently, Lois happened to glance over her shoulder, finding herself looking right into Stewie's hidden fortress, the entrance to which had been left unsealed. The baby slapped a palm against his forehead in an _oh, smooth move_ gesture as Lois shrieked and they all turned to see what she was staring at.

Initially, everyone froze. Then…

Lois, Chris, and Meg all started freaking out at once. They swarmed into Stewie's hitherto secret lair and the shocked exclamations they loosed while randomly picking stuff up and examining it was deafening.

Stewie wove his way between his mother and siblings, attempting to make them leave his various technologies alone. He pointed a bazooka at his mother and ordered her, Chris, and Meg out of his lab or else, only to have her snatch it away, as usual giving zero credence to his threats, although she did notice for the first time that what he wielded was, in fact, a real weapon, and not a toy.

"My, God! There- there're _guns_ in here, too! Guns in my baby's room!"

Brian decided to escape the mayhem and go back downstairs to the main floor. After all, here he was in a brand new body, and he hadn't even had a quiet moment alone yet to let it sink in! As he turned to go, he almost stepped on the hand mirror that he'd used earlier to bid farewell to his dog form. Warily, he slowly lifted it up in front of his face.

Brian gasped loudly, and turned his head away from what he saw there.

After a short moment, he was ready to take a second peek. Brian moved the mirror close to his face, and then held it back as far as he could, his eyes squinting critically, apprehensively at his majorly-altered image. He continued slowly moving the mirror back and forth, forward and away, forward and away, several times. Then, finally, he brought it up close to his face and left it there.

His expression relaxed.

The more he looked the more his worry over having lost his old self forever was subdued. If he was going to be human, this was what he _should_ look like. His hair was white (the lightest shade on his former grayscale-only vision, and so a color he'd long been able to identify), abundant, and disheveled, flopping into eyes the color of Stewie's teddy bear…brown, yes. Typical that his nose was the most obtrusive feature on his face. But, if he did say so himself, it gave his face character and was even sort of dignified. At least it was nowhere close to looking like the grotesque, furless snout the Multiverse version of his human self had had. It was really quite incredible that his appearance could be _so_ very different, and yet he was still somehow recognizably himself.

Glancing at Stewie, the baby looked so small now! Of course he'd always been shorter than Brian, but now there was a much greater contrast of proportions.

"Those damn infernal idiots!" the seriously irate child shouted to no one in particular. He was coming toward Brian, and the man bent and picked him up.

"What the deuce? Brian! Put me down! What insolence is this? You've no right to take me from my room!"

But resistance was futile, and Brian carried Stewie downstairs.

**BREAK!**

Midnight arrived without anyone in the Griffin household having been to bed. Brian now wore a pair of pants belonging to Chris and consequently ludicrously oversized. To keep them on, they were cinched, the material bunched in heavy folds, with a belt very tightly practically under the new human's armpits, instead of at the hips where the pants were meant to sit. They were coupled with a shirt that was likewise Chris's and Brian was likewise swimming in. He sat on the living room sofa with Stewie at his side. Neither of them had moved, or spoken, for a very long time. The rest of the family was upstairs, Peter having been called home from the Clam. The Griffin patriarch came home big-mouthed bellyaching about being torn away from his cold brewskies and some filthy but fascinating story Quagmire had been right in the middle of. He didn't even notice the strange man sitting on the couch with Stewie. Then, once Peter got upstairs and discovered that what he had been called home for was even more interesting than hearing about how Quagmire had banged the nurse who had been testing him for syphilis right there on the examination table, shouted his loudest "HOLY CRAP!" ever. He, his wife and two eldest children had been in Stewie's room, or rather, the attached lab, for hours now.

The pair on the couch awaited the resurfacing of their family from upstairs on tenterhooks. Brian's stomach was in knots, waiting to see how he would be accepted by them now, and also how Stewie would be treated in light of recent revelations. Stewie, too, was apprehensive on these scores, and also on what havoc might his far less-intelligent family be wreaking on his precious lab and all that lay within. He really ought to have stayed upstairs and made sure they didn't accidentally kill themselves or each other with anything they found in there. Then again, if he _had_ remained, there was always the chance that watching messing around with his inventions with their clumsy, ignorant mitts, _he'd_ wind up killing them. And while their demises wouldn't especially devastate him, they wouldn't especially gladden him, either. So it was fine that Brian brought him downstairs.

Although he'd tried to anticipate his family's reactions so that his own could be calm and controlled, and think how best to circumvent any hindrances that might be thrown in his path, he couldn't help but fret and fume. All of his inventions- they would probably want to sell them! And take credit for their creation, of course! He wouldn't even put it past his lousy excuses for family to betray and exploit either or both himself and Brian by subjecting the genius baby and the dogman to scientific experimentation and a media firestorm! How much did either of them really mean to the other Griffins?

Stewie couldn't stop fearfully wringing his hands together. He had bags under his eyes, as he really hadn't gotten enough sleep at all today for a one-year-old, but the fact that he couldn't sleep when his family was upstairs poking around all the inventions, mechanisms, and weapons that had long been Stewie's secret stash was more than understandable.

At long last, soft tread could be heard on the stairs in the front room, and Lois spoke from the middle of them,

"Well, we've certainly had a shock and a half tonight, haven't we?"

She descended the rest of the way down the stairs, trailing her hand along the railing.

"What I want to know…is how you managed to keep this hidden from all of us. And _why_ you did."

Brian assumed, rather reasonably, her to be speaking to Stewie, so it came as quite a large surprise when she stopped in front of the couch and stared squarely at Brian, plainly addressing _him_.

"Well? I'm waiting, Brian," she said with a forbidding air and crossed arms. "All these years you've never worked a steady job, just played at being a writer. Why did you waste your time on _that_? None of use suspected…all those amazing machines and devices…look at the phenomenal talent, the genius you have! And yet you're a total freeloader here, why don't you go public with your inventions and make yourself a damn fortune?"

Her presumption bowled Brian over, made his eyes go wide. And out of the corner of those wide eyes, he could see that it had made Stewie extremely indignant. The baby stood up on the couch cushion and demanded attention.

"_Excuse_ me? You- you think _Brian_ built all that you've seen in the lab, and indeed the lab itself? You've gotta be fucking _kidding _me! He flunked out of Physics 101! No offense, Brian, I mean, you're far from stupid, and I love you, but..._pfft_!" He blew a derisive raspberry and turned back to Lois. "B-but _Brian's _the scientific mastermind? _Brian_?"

Lois checked her watch and sighed.

"12:25. And _Peter's_ got work in the morning, Meg and Chris have school, and who do you think gets them up for it, and cooks them breakfast?"

"Oh, well. Good on you for becoming human." She swooped down upon her infant child and gathered him into her grasp. She loitered a moment, gazing down on Brian appraisingly before saying thoughtfully, "You're rather handsome, you know."

Now that Brian was human, he couldn't just curl up on the floor or lie on the end of someone's bed, he needed a room of his own, and it was determined that it should be in the basement. With no time to fit it up properly just then, Brian was dismissed to the lower level of the Griffin residence, where the exposed pipes leaked, and it was often too cool for comfort. But tonight Brian hardly noticed the ordinarily irksome sound of dripping water, or the temperature, or the fact that the only bed that could be found for him was a half-inflated air mattress. After the day he'd had, none of it mattered; Brian fell upon his bed and slept with real alacrity.

**BREAK!**

"_Psst! Pssst! _Brian! Hey, Brian, wake up!"

The words reached through the fog of his unconsciousness and stirred his awareness until the cloud wafted away and he emerged from his slumber to realize that a pair of small hands was gripping his arm, shaking it insistently. Stewie clearly was in some anxiety to speak to him, but for many moments all Brian could focus on was the feel of those hands on the flesh of his arm, on a limb unencumbered by fur. For those moments, the sensation of skin on skin was startling. As Brian slowly sat up, he placed his hand over the child's, so that the sensitive pads of his fingers might feel some more.

"Stewie? What is it?" he muttered groggily.

"I need you to come upstairs with me forthwith! I've finished my age-increasing machine and am going to utilize it now."

Brian rubbed his eyes and groaned softly. "What? What _time_ is it?"

"A little past four in the morning."

Brian dropped his hand from his eyes. "Wait- and you're going to do this _now_?"

"Come on, Brian, it's the only time we have to do it!" Stewie said emphatically. "How much longer do you think I'll have the necessary materials and equipment at my disposal? Everything might be gone within the course of today if we wait!"

Stewie was already making to leave the basement. Brian rolled off the air mattress, scrambled to stand with his ungainly, stranger's legs and hastened after him, and the two of them quietly stole upstairs together.

**BREAK!**

Lois was on her way to the bathroom when flashing lights, the brightest she'd ever seen, coming from under and around the sides of her infant son's closed bedroom door caught her attention and woke her completely from her half-asleep, zombie walk to the toilet, and sent her sprinting for Stewie's room.

Inside, thick billows of smoke were pouring from a corner, and together with the glaring, pulsating lights gave the appearance that a rock show was about to start. Lois didn't know what was going on; she couldn't see Stewie anywhere, and she feared that one of Brian's machines had caught fire.

Just then, however, through the smoke, a silhouette materialized: that of tall, slim man with the identifying characteristic of a football-shaped head.

Lois dropped to her knees on the floor of Stewie's bedroom.

"Not again!"

_To be continued…_


	5. Not Working Out

**Disclaimer: I do not, never have, and never will own Family Guy.**

**Chapter Five: Not Working Out**

Peter sat at the head of the table, but it was Lois who had the moderator's chair at the "emergency family meeting" that was currently in progress.

"Why?" she asked yet again. There had been a multitude of questions Lois had lobbed at her now-mysteriously-adult son since this "meeting" had commenced, but she kept returning to _that _one.

"I told you," Stewie groaned, tapping his fingers against the tabletop in irritation. "I was tired of being treated like a baby, so I decided that in order to get that vastly incorrect conduct toward myself to cease, _I _would cease being a baby and change myself into an adult. Simple as that."

Whenever he opened his mouth to speak, the sound of his voice seemed to contort his mother's face with shock and consternation. It didn't sound any different than it ever had. She'd been hearing it for years, but now that it was housed in the body of an over six-foot tall man, she was incapable of ignoring it, of dismissing it as baby babble. Upstairs when Stewie had explained to her that it'd been _he _who kept the secret lab and stockpiled it with all manner of gadgets and weaponry of his design, then subsequently began to rattle off complicated scientific formulas and theorems and mechanical jargon, she'd actually fainted.

Peter and Meg also continued to look weirded out by Stewie's erudition and articulateness. Only Brian and Chris did not.

"How the hell are we supposed to explain this to people?" Lois cried desperately. "Why- why is my youngest child now my oldest? Huh? Can you supply me with an answer that we can give people that sounds _sane_?"

"By no means do you have to acknowledge me as your child," said Stewie with a hint of a sneer. "I promise I won't be hurt not to be affiliated with this family. Say that I'm somebody else entirely, and forget that you ever had another son. Who will even _miss_ me? Nobody noticed me before; do you really think that any one of your dunderhead acquaintances will ever wonder what became of your baby?"

Lois had not expected such insulting words from her until-recently infant child. Her eyes widened and her air of distress increased. Perhaps she should've granted herself a much-needed moment of comic relief by taking a moment to notice what this rude man who she'd just yesterday breastfed was wearing- her own clothes, in fact, the tan pants not even long enough to reach his shins.

Instead, she let out a moan and declared, "This is all just too much to think about right now!" She gestured hopelessly toward the only other family member who looked even less like they did twenty-four hours than Stewie, asking, "And what about Brian?"

"Brian, our dog, died." Stewie tossed off the cover story easily. "Make up any cause of death you like, there will be no big brew-ha-ha about it because, well….he was a dog."

Brian shot him a dirty look as Stewie motioned to the white-haired and continued, "This man here is our new boarder. We've been obliged to rent out a room in the basement, you see. It's completely plausible that we'd need the money, after all the dough the Fat Man pisses away on a regular basis on crap for his stupid stunts."

"I know a better way to make a nice chunk of change," Peter announced excitedly, and Stewie felt as though the blood in his veins turned to ice water. "Very nice and chunky indeed. We take all those machines and gizmos upstairs in that secret lab and sell them for a goddamn bundle! And while we're at it, Lois, we might as well take credit for making them. Or at least I should. I don't know that that many people would buy a _woman_ coming up with that stuff."

At least it wasn't the plan that involved donating his former dog and baby for scientific experimentation.

"We most certainly will not!" Lois snapped, the stark severity of her voice causing Stewie to sit up straight in his seat in surprise. "Those are _Stewie's_ inventions, and nobody is _ever _going to find out about them! What, you think I want people thinking we raised a little mad scientist? And talk about it not being believable that _I _could make all that stuff, who the hell's gonna believe that you built it, you certified retard?"

Peter glared at her grudgingly for a moment, then went off topic with, "Look, I don't understand why we have to be havin' a family meetin' about all this- Brian's a human now, and I couldn't be happier. That means we'll get to have him around and him and me can be buddies for a good long time! And Stewie's grown up now, so what? One less child who's our legal obligation, although I still think it's a grave injustice that we're required by law to feed, clothe, and house Meg." The Griffin patriarch turned to the white-haired man at his side and inquired, "One thing I wanna know, though, Brian: why are you so young?"

"Stewie gave me a drink before I entered the machine that's a real marvel, that made my real-age go down; that's why I'm only twenty-eight years old now. Stewie, you never did answer me: is there a limit as to how many times a dog can ingest it, and keep decreasing their age?"

"If there was no limit, there would've been no point in turning you human. The only reason to change your species was to prolong your lifespan," Stewie replied. "It's very strong stuff, and I wouldn't at all suggest that a dog's constitution could handle it. As it is, you'll probably experience some side effects such as nausea as the day progresses after having taken just that one dose."

Following this, the whole family just sat at the table in utter quietude for a number of minutes until Chris suddenly put an end to it by bringing up a very good point.

"Um, so, yeah, we need a ride to school."

Peter's, Lois's, Brian's, and Stewie's heads all rotated to look at him in surprise, although whether it was because they'd forgotten that he and Meg were even sitting at the table, or that Chris, not academically-inclined whatsoever or one of the popular kids, would mention the need to go to school. Next, they all looked at the clock on the wall to discover it was a quarter after nine.

"Oh, my God, you kids are so late!" Lois exclaimed, slipping back in to day-to-day mothering-business mode. "And Peter, you're late for work." She started to rise from the table. "Chris, Meg, get in my car, I'll drive you. Peter, what are you waiting for? You'd better be getting on your way to work!"

"No way, Lois!" Peter replied. "Angela said if I came in late again I'm fired. Do you wanna take that chance? No, _I'll _take Chris and Meg to school, then stop off at the Clam on the way home."

"Yeah, Peter, alright, fine, just get out of here," Lois sighed wearily, slumping back onto her chair.

Peter nudged Chris conspiratorially. "Catch us if you can!" He shouted at Meg, and the two guys vaulted out of their chairs, knocking them over in the process. Meg was fast behind them, but Peter was hiding around the doorframe, lying in wait to trip her when she tried to run into the front room. She went down face-first, while Peter and Chris ran laughing out of the house. She picked herself up off the ground and dashed after them, but as she yanked open the front door, her father and brother were already peeling out of the driveway and seconds later they could hear her yelling after the car as she obviously chased it down the street.

Lois said with wistful accusation, directing her words at Stewie, "I don't suppose you've given any consideration to what you've robbed _me_ of. Meg's almost a legal adult and Chris is in his teens: they don't need me anymore. But I'm not done being a mother! And until this morning, _you_ were my consolation, Stewie! You were a baby- you still had many, many more years of needing me! I was looking forward to doing so all sorts of mother and son things with you, looking forward to raising you into a fine young man."

"I can't pretend I turned my mind to it for a single second, no," said Stewie coldly. "Anyway, you've already _had _two attempts at parenting. It's not _my_ fault you made such a spectacularly bungled job out of both of them."

"You're never done being a mother, Lois," said Brian gently, trying to comfort her. "For the rest of your life, your children will want you in theirs in some capacity, it's inevitable."

One corner of Lois's mouth moved feebly upward in response, while Stewie gave a disdainful snort that made his mother's weak smile flatline, and had her looking at him as if she didn't know who he was. Because she didn't. She never had.

In a moment, the expression faded and she slowly stood from the table, shaking her head. She stopped beside Stewie's hair, leaned down and cupped the young man's chin in her hand, sighed softly and sadly, then left the room.

"Alone at last," Stewie crooned, reaching out to gently trace his index finger flirtatiously across the knuckles of Brian's hand where it rested on the tabletop.

Indecision writhed in the ex-dog's gut. From the time Stewie'd first hinted at the possibility of them together, Brian hadn't been really sure that it was what he wanted, to take his relationship with him to the next level. Now, here they were, all obstacles to their coupling removed, and his doubts had intensified to the point where they were overtaking the portion of optimism that dwelt amidst them.

When Stewie started to walk away from him on the beach, Brian should have just let him go. He never should've called him back. Jesus, he never should've given the kid a reason to hope! Brian wanted nothing more than to run out of the house right now and have wild and crazy sex with the first woman he saw.

Stewie was leaning toward him and puckering up, and Brian allowed a brief, close-lipped kiss. But when Stewie started running his tongue along the seam of Brian's mouth, trying to open it while his hand came around to rest at the back of the older man's neck, lightly fingering the white tresses, the former canine jerked his head away.

"Is this really how you want us to start?" he asked, his pulse picking up as he became considerably flustered. He reached up and removed Stewie's hand from the back of his neck. "We already jumped the gun in Maui: do we want to continue that pattern of act first, think later?"

"Mm, I enjoyed jumping the gun," Stewie, clasping his hands together dreamily, said with fond reminiscence.

"I don't know why you're in such raptures about it- you didn't even get to have an orgasm," blurted out Brian impetuously and a little angrily. Instantly, he ducked his head and coughed, overwhelmingly discomfited to be talking orgasms with Stewie. But it was something that had been on his mind since yesterday morning. That is, what Stewie's opinion of their…encounter had been. His _real_ opinion, his real feelings, about the experience. He'd shown a brave face the morning after, sure. He'd loved the aspect of the object of his affections taking him to bed. But it had been the kid's first time, and Brian had been hammered for it. Had he had enough lucidity to have gone slowly, to have been gentle with Stewie, or had he simply…rammed it in? It was a source of much inner turmoil to consider how beastly he may have behaved, that he might've made the event more painful even then it had to be for Stewie. What Brian could remember of the other's responses during the act said that he had enjoyed it, but then Stewie was one who never showed weakness if he could help it.

As for his own level of enjoyment that night, Brian knew that he had come. Owing to, probably, if nothing else, how extremely tight Stewie must have been (something which felt tremendously wrong even to think about objectively). He didn't recall feeling that much sensation, and he probably hadn't. That was the thing about drunk sex; it was release, but not exactly spine-tingling pleasure.

Stewie shrugged. "It was you, it was nice. It felt good…eventually." The young man frowned faintly on uttering that 'eventually', but soon brightened and said in a naughty tone, accompanied by a suggestive smirk, "And I'm sure I'll be having plenty of-"

"What I'm saying," Brian interposed swiftly, because thinking about bringing Stewie to climax (many climaxes) was not something his brain could handle right now. It made him perhaps more disturbed than contemplating the possibly of having hurt the kid during the act because it denoted numerous acts to come, which Brian was in no way shape or form ready to go through with. "is that I think we'd be better off taking it slow. I don't think we ought to rush into the physical stuff."

"Getting to do 'the physical stuff' is how I know our relationship has changed," Stewie said reasonably. "'Take it slow'. What's that supposed to mean? Hang out, spend all our free time together, get to know each other inside and out? I think we've already done that." He smiled and joked, "For a long time, now, we've basically been a couple minus the sex. Which, I guess, means we've been like a married couple." Slowly, his grin morphed into a pout and he asked in a wheedling tone, "Come on now, Brian, why should we have to wait?"

"W-well," Brian began unsteadily, "I really think we should take the time to….acclimate ourselves to being inside these new bodies. Especially you."

Stewie's brow scrunched in confusion. "Why especially me? Your body is just as new to you as mine is to me; in fact, one could very justly argue more so."

Brian shifted his stance uncomfortably, feeling the bridge of his nose start to grow warm like a sinus ache with powerfully-felt embarrassment. He stumbled through his explanation: "Yes, but…at least _I _know what always gave me…pleasure before. You need to-to find out what, um makes you feel good, too." He had to stop and clear his throat, wet his parched lips. "And your body can do things now that it couldn't before and is liable to do them…faster than you might want. I've had a great deal more experience, so I, er, know how to…hold it together until it's….uh….a better time to let go. So I think you should, erm…_practice_ some on-on your own, build up….stamina."

_Please, Stewie, get what I'm saying without me having to spell it out for you!_

Suddenly, the flash of realization appeared in the other's eyes. "Oh, you're talking about-"

Brian said it quickly: "Masturbation."

"Oh."

Just then, they heard the front door open and the voices of Peter and Quagmire in the living room. _Back from the Clam already? _Brian got up and from around the doorjamb peeked in on the scene. Lois soon came down the stairs and joined the two men.

"_Hi, Lois_." Glenn Quagmire had a much softer, gentler tone to his voice than normal. He was also holding a large bouquet of flowers, which he now presented to Lois, who accepted them wordlessly. "I just can't stop thinking about what happened to poor Brian. I had to rush right over here so I could express my condolences…" (_You mean so you could gloat, _thought Brian with deep detestation) "…I'm so sorry, you guys." His voice oozed false sympathy, and all the while it couldn't be more obvious that he was trying to keep in check the smirk of nasty delight that was causing the corner of his mouth to uncontrollably twitch; Brian growled under his breath from his spot behind the kitchen doorway. "Such an awful way to go, too. God, run over by a lawnmower that then propelled him into the street, where he was then trampled by the chumbawumbas in the Former Girlfriends of Bill Clinton Parade that just happened to be passing by. And while he laid there twitching and trying to move out of the street, looking like he should already be dead, shot and finally killed by a zombie hunter who was driving by and mistook him for the reanimated dead! I just can't believe it!"

"'What the fucking hell? _That's_ the story we're going with?" Brian whispered harshly in seething outrage. Barging into the living room, he walked straight up to Quagmire.

"Hi, nice to meet you," he said with a big, fake, cheery grin. "I'm Brian, the Griffins' new boarder."

Quagmire got a funny look on his face and seemed to tense.

Brian frowned slightly. "Is something wrong?"

"No, no," Quagmire assured him, the uneasy attitude slowly dissipating. He chuckled a little. "It's just that that name doesn't have the most pleasant associations for me. I knew another guy called Brian and he was a real a-hole."

"Well, I hope you like me a little better than you did him," remarked the white-haired man, holding his hand out to be shaken.

"That shouldn't be too hard, considering I hated the bastard," Quagmire laughed, pumping Brian's hand. "I'm Glenn Quagmire. Welcome to the neighbor-"

Brian had to let go of Glenn's hand to double over and clutch his stomach,

_Oh, man, this must be what Stewie was telling me about: the nausea resulting from the real-age reducer. God, this is seriously unpleasant…but the timing really couldn't be better,_ was what going through Brian's head right before he upchucked all over Quagmire's shoes.

"-hood," Glenn finished between clenched teeth as Brian wiped the back of his mouth with his sleeve and smiled.

**BREAK!**

As Brian sat in a corner booth in a random club late that night, he couldn't help but notice all the looks of interest he drew from a number of ladies in the vicinity. And a few guys as well, but this, while gratifying, was not, _of course, _something that Brian would want to pursue. As in ever. Yep, 110 percent heterosexual, that described him to a T. How disgraceful and manipulative that quack Dr. Sharpe was. And yes, Stewie, too, for piggybacking on the mess the doctor had created in Brian's head and using the dog's drunken and vulnerable state to achieve his own ends.

He would be a fool not to go out and enjoy all the attention he got from being a young, attractive human man.

Brian had been thinking some more about the Stewie situation, on account of it was impossible to think about anything else. And the more thought he gave to it, the more his misgivings had gnawed away at him until he'd come the conclusion that he'd made a colossal mistake, and that had spurred him to the club.

He'd definitely been in a strange place mentally in the aftermath of his and Stewie's night together. He'd allowed the event to blur the line between friendship and romance and in his flight of fancy he'd imagined an end to his loneliness, someone who would always be there for him, who he could share himself with unreservedly and discuss cultural things with. Well, he'd begun to imagine things more realistically now: he imagined Stewie obsessive, possessive and controlling, and the two of them constantly fighting. In other words, he'd come to his senses. He was positive now that any attempt at a romantic relationship they could have made would have been a horrible farce. They would have made each other wretched. Because Brian was no catch himself, with his depression and abandonment issues he could only cope with by drinking. He thus convinced himself that he was doing Stewie a favor by not going through with their plan. Stewie deserved someone who wouldn't just be humoring him by embarking on a romantic relationship with him. Also, it was important to remember that Stewie went through phases. It was his current mania to want Brian, but how much longer was that likely to last? Probably as soon as he got what he wanted, he would want it no more.

And besides, when it came right down to it, he just didn't have it in him to try and make a go of it with another guy. He wasn't attracted to men, plain and simple.

Much better to sit here and wonder which rubbernecking lady would approach him first.

He didn't have to wait long. The first one to do so was a pretty young thing with legs for days and killer curves in a clingy minidress.

"Hey there, handsome." She greeted him with a confident smile and flip of her hair.

"Hey," Brian returned, letting what he hoped was a suave smile stretch his lips.

"I'm Chelsea," said the girl, offering her hand.

"Brian." He lifted it to his lips and gave it a kiss. She giggled and sat down beside him in the booth, helping herself to a long swallow of his drink, even though she'd approached him holding one of her own.

"So…come here often?" he quizzed, mentally chastising himself for the triteness of the line. Fortunately, his lack of originality didn't seem to bother his new acquaintance.

"Yeah, I'm here or at some other club practically every night!" she answered, sounding almost as thought she was bragging, and he noticed for the first time how strongly the smell of drink clung to her. "Gotta do _something_ in this boring town, huh?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Brian complacently. "Quahog's a nice little burg. Granted, it's not exactly a teeming metropolis. It's no New York or anything like that. Now, New York is like Prague sans the whimsy, but-"

"_Oh, New York_!" Chelsea squealed. "I _so _want to move there someday and try to make a name for myself on Broadway."

"Oh, are you an actress?" Brian asked, glad there might possibly be something interesting about this girl.

"No," replied Chelsea, shaking her head. "I'm an interpretive dancer. In fact, I'm gonna go dance with my friends now. Watch me?" she requested with a minxish little smile, before scampering off.

Brian watched her out on the floor, surrounded by her crowd of girlfriends, giggling loudly and uncontrollably with them and tippling one drink after another. The only thing that Brian was able to interpret from her dancing was that she was totally bombed. She would spin in sloppy, unwieldy circles, then wave her arms about wildly and moves her legs as if she was trying to imitate a newborn colt. It was not doing anything particular for his libido until the grand finale of her show came and she let go of the glass in her hand, letting it roll onto the floor, climbed ungracefully atop a convenient table and started stickking her ass out, then pulling it back in, hollering,

"Woo! Booty poppin'! Booty pop-pin!"

This motion caused her dress to slip down and expose her tits and he knew that he'd tap her.

A minute later, she'd wobbled her way down from the table and was back over at Brian's table.

"Oh, _man_, I am _sooooo_ wasted!" she cackled, dropping down next to the white-haired man again.

Brian smirked. "Yeah, baby, I can sort of tell," he murmured, his hand making contact with the side of her leg, sliding up her thigh, groping the curved, tender flesh just below the hemline of her short, short dress.

And then she leaned toward him, real close, her alcohol-scented breath wafting across his cheek, her round, full breasts pressed into his side, and whispered in his ear all the dirty things she wanted to do to him.

So he took her home and he let her.

**BREAK!**

Brian was awakened by the sound of some kind of commotion in the kitchen. He didn't know how long it'd been since he'd fallen asleep after getting it on with the girl from the club, but it didn't feel like it had been for any substantial duration. Above him, there was the noise of someone scooting a chair across the linoleum, probably in closer to the table, probably because they'd run into it or stubbed their toe on it.

Brian propped himself up on his elbows; a light flicked on at the top of the stairs. Brian brought a hand up to screen his eyes from the brightness he was squinting into, waiting for them to adjust, endeavoring to discern who was standing there in the pool of light.

It was Stewie, who called down into the basement, in a none-to-soft voice,

"Brian?"

Brian looked quickly to his side. At least tonight's conquest was a heavy sleeper.

"Brian?" Stewie called again, then started making his way down the stairs. Brian sat up fully on the mattress; beside him, Chelsea still slept like a log. He craned his neck to get a view of the stairs and saw Stewie paused at just the point on the them, Brian knew, where he'd be able to see the air mattress. If he ventured any farther down, he might notice that Brian was not alone in bed.

Their eyes met, and Stewie smiled, and his foot moved to proceed down to the next step. Brian's heart gave a shudder of alarm.

"Stop! Don't-don't come down any further!" he yelped out shakily, but as softly as he could, being mindful of the slumbering woman next to him, that his luck may not hold out much longer.

Puzzlement entered into Stewie's tone and countenance. "Why not?"

"I-I'm not decent!"

"And that's supposed to deter me?" Stewie snickered.

Brian, ignoring the comment, called back him, "I'll come up. Just wait a minute." Brian slung his legs over the side of the mattress and put them one at a time through the leg holes of his boxers, then rooted around on the floor until he found a T-shirt to slip on before running softly up the stairs to the kitchen to meet Stewie.

"I'm sorry to wake you," the younger man started, "but, well, _I _couldn't sleep.

I thought we could have a nice bit of chit-a-chat. I feel like our conversation left a lot of things unaddressed."

Ordinarily, this excuse wouldn't have sufficed to prevent Brian from being greatly annoyed at having been woken up just to talk, but this was the kid whose heart he would soon enough have to be breaking, so he was going to let it slide. As he remembered the deed that he would have to perform, Brian scratched the back of his neck and glanced away in shame. "What do you want to talk about?" he asked quietly, then suddenly felt himself tense up in horror as a voice yelled from downstairs,

"Brandon? Brandon, what happened to you?"

Brian winced; this was _so_ not how he wanted to break it to the kid. He'd planned on taking Stewie someplace quiet (but public, in the very likely event that the younger overreacted) and letting him know in the most humane way possible that it just wasn't going to work out between them.

"I-I'll be right down, baby, don't sweat it!" Brian then cringed, upset with himself for using a pet name in front of Stewie. It was just his habit to talk like that to women. It made him feel stud-like.

Brian waited for it; waited for what he believed was the certain explosion of tremendous anger from the teenager who stood opposite him. It never came. Instead, when Brian dared glance back to Stewie, the face of his longtime friend and admirer looked nothing but crestfallen. Brian saw his throat work as he swallowed and squeezed out in the smallest voice, "You're cheating on me?"

"Stewie, look at it logically: in order for me to be cheating on you, we would actually have to be together."

Stewie's jaw dropped in injured amazement. "Oh, I'm sorry, we're _not_? So we _didn't _agree to give a relationship a try when we were on the beach in Maui?"

"I never should have done that," Brian murmured lowly, insipidly. He took a deep breath and compelled himself to speak with resolution. "I was drunk and seeking solace the night of…the night of. It never would've happened otherwise, and I guess I just didn't have the heart to tell you 'no' the next morning. But I've only ever felt friendship for you, I'm sorry." He sighed heavily in remorse,

Stewie narrowed his eyes at him in disgust. "I can't say I didn't think it was a possibility that this would happen, but I _am_ cruelly disappointed that it did. I thought you'd finally come to your senses, Brian." Stewie looked at him in the face with a steely gaze. "You don't sleep with someone you only have platonic feelings for."

"I was drunk out of my mind!"

"Don't you dare try that one on me! I've known you to drink much more than you imbibed that night!"

"It was still enough that I didn't know what I was doing!"

"Oh, please, alcohol only lowers your inhibitions so you can do what you were thinking about doing anyway!"

"Oh, yeah? What about that time I got stuck taking Meg to the prom and ended up getting wasted and making out with _her_? _Meg!_" God, how Brian filled with mortification to even _think_ of that again, but bringing it up was the strongest support of his argument.

Yet Stewie was unswayed. "Yeah, so you can get real desperate when you're drunk and horny," he sneered. "But you _do_ feel something for me beyond friendship, Brian; you know it and I know it. I've felt it when we're together- it's not a _friendly _energy I get coming from you- I've seen it in your eyes. You _want_ to be with me. Otherwise you wouldn't have said- while you were completely sober, by the way!- that you were willing to give our love a try!"

"Listen, I'm really sorry I didn't follow though on my end of the bargain, alright?" Brian retorted hotly, his guilty conscience starting to make him become defensive. "I know that's the only reason you went to all the trouble of changing my species and extending my lifespan!"

He regretted it the instant he said it. A part of him had feared that it was true, but as soon as he said it aloud, accusingly, to Stewie, he knew that those fears had been stupid, groundless, a betrayal. He almost physically recoiled from the hard, bitter look he saw etched on Stewie's features resulting from his words.

"Is that what you really think of me?" Stewie asked flatly, his eyes drilling holes into Brian. "That I would only be interested in saving your life if I was under the impression that I could have you for a partner afterward?"

"No." Brian shook his head, his pained heart straining against his ribcage as though yearning to break free from this man who said and did such hurtful things, to lie in Stewie's palms and let the younger examine it and discern its good intentions. "No. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

Stewie looked at him with deadened eyes. "See you around, Brandon_." _he muttered. He made to head out of the kitchen, was halfway across the floor when he apparently changed his mind and reeled around and stalked toward Brian, shouting into his face, "You said you were willing to give me a chance! You made me believe you loved me, you son of a bitch!"

"Stewie, won't you please listen?" Brian cried plaintively, backing up as much as he could without taking a spill down the stairs. "I _do_ love you, just not like that! You have no idea how important you are to me: you're my closest confidante, you understand me better than anyone has before, you're my friend, and more than that you're my family! I just want things to go back to the way they used to be, I just want-"

"JUST FUCK YOU, BRIAN! FUCK YOU!" Stewie yelled loudly enough to make both their ears ring, straining his voice so much so in the process that on the last word it went noticeably hoarse. He flipped the bird at the white-haired man and his finger was visibly shaking as he fought back incensed tears; he was not entirely successful, and several streaked down his flushed cheeks. "No, we're NOT friends anymore! We're not friends, we're not friendly acquaintances, and we're sure as hell not family! You're nothing to me now! NOTHING!"

And with that, Stewie swiveled and took himself off in a blaze of fury.

A female voice with a hint of laughter in it asked from behind Brian, "What was _that_ about?"

Brian cast Chelsea a cursory glance over his shoulder; she was twirling one of her crimped locks of hair about a French-tipped finger looking tousled, full of the sleepy good humor that comes with the post coital condition, and vacant.

He turned back around to gaze with a sunken heart at the spot in front of him where Stewie had been.

"It's nothing," he muttered. He told himself that Stewie would forgive him in time, but still he felt a powerful dread come over him at the grim thought that he might _not_, and a lump suddenly enter his throat to consider what tonight's actions might have caused him to lose out on in the long run.

_To be continued…_


	6. Dating

**Thank you all for bringing the awesomeness with your reviews! XD (and with your fav/alerts adds as well) I love to hear your comments! **

**Disclaimer: I do not, never have, and never will own Family Guy.**

**Chapter Six: Dating**

Brian was seldom at home over the course of the next few weeks. He was more often than not out and about with his new girlfriend, Chelsea, or over at her place.

Not that he wanted to be, exactly. He wasn't quite sure why he was continuing with this relationship that so easily could've been left as a one-night-stand. They didn't connect on any meaningful level, they didn't even really have anything in common. And yet things were going mostly smoothly, she was beautiful, and they had a lot of sex. (And one perk of dating her was that she worked as a hairstylist, and had given him a rather smart cut for free) While she couldn't be called an intellectual, she wasn't stupid, just shallow. Which, he kept reminding himself, was not to be unexpected in a twenty-five-year-old. Maybe what it boiled down to was he just couldn't justify breaking up with her unless she was a plain awful person or she cheated on him or something. He'd been that way with all his girlfriends. It was better than being alone.

Brian'd never once since that first night brought her home. He wouldn't be so callous as to bring any romantic interest back to the Griffin house until such a time that Stewie had recovered from his heartache enough to be able to cope with seeing Brian with a date. God knew when that would be.

Brian was positively crushed about the whole business with Stewie. The kid would barely even speak to him. Initially he tried to tell himself, putting his typical cynical Brian spin on it, that it was a nice break from having the kid fastened to his side at all times, talking his ear off about whatever random thought or mania took hold of him and getting him involved in crazy Stewie schemes. But it was no use pretending. Brian missed their day-to-day interactions. Immensely.

The most Stewie had said to him since the night of their awful confrontation was when he'd walked up behind Brian while the former dog was chatting online with Chelsea, and, reading her signing-off message- **c u 2morrow lurv u!**- had said with enormous contempt, "God, it doesn't take much for you, does it, Brian?"

Evidently deducing that he and Chelsea had already gotten serious. That whenever he managed to hold on to any pretty face for longer than a few dates, he was ready to call it _lurrrvvve_. As a matter of fact, however, Brian _didn't_ love Chelsea, and hadn't told her that he did.

The more distance Stewie put between himself and Brian, the more the latter wondered what the former did to keep himself occupied now that they weren't constantly together. An awful possibly began to occur to him: the possibility of _Stewie _dating someone else. Brian wouldn't put it past the younger man to go out and find a sort of "rebound", as it were. For some reason, it made Brian turn cold and his stomach churn to think of some no-good, worthless punk daring to presume he could touch Stewie. Stewie had no knowledge of the dating scene; he did not know how to be properly selective. At any given moment, while Brian was off with Chelsea, _Stewie_ could be off doing unspeakable, unthinkable things with someone completely unworthy. It stirred every protective feeling of Brian's to a near frenzy.

One Saturday night, Brian and Chelsea were at a party being held by one of her friends. Chelsea was giving an account of how they met to a group of her pals (ones who hadn't been at the club with her that night to witness the event).

"So we started out as just this drunken hookup, and now it's turned into total true love!" Chelsea squealed, nuzzling Brian's neck and then kissing it while her friends looked on and _awwwed. _Had her boyfriend been asked to give a description of their relationship, it would not have been the same as hers. He flushed, not only because he wasn't exactly into such mushy behavior in public, but also because he felt some unreasonable guilt at her apparent contentment with what they had between them when _his _feelings for _her _were lukewarm at best. Though he consoled himself that her emotional attachment couldn't really be as strong as she professed. Though she most likely thought it was. He had a notion, not entirely reassuring, that she was one of those who lacked the depth to differentiate between finding someone attractive and enjoying their company and being in love with them.

Good choice for a girlfriend, huh?

Just then, a new song came on.

"Ooh Rihanna! Don't you think that's such a fantastic name? Maybe a good one for one of _our _kids."

What the hell? Was she crazy? Hopefully she wasn't thinking about _that_ already. Hopefully she was just joking.

"Well, Chelsea, to be honest I…I don't want any kids," he admitted, figuring he may as well this opening anyway to make clear his feelings on the subject. Then decided that if he was going to be _totally_ honest, he'd better say, "That is, I don't want any _more_. I have a son. With an ex-girlfriend. He lives out of state. I probably should have told you before. But anyway, yeah, I'm done having kids."

Chelsea's face registered surprise. "Your son must be pretty young."

"Uh, y-yeah, he's young," replied Brian slowly, knowing that she probably had a toddler in mind when she said 'young', but, well, a thirteen-year-old _was_ young, after all. He looked at her somberly. "Sorry."

"Oh, I, I was only being cute, anyway," Chelsea attempted to reassure him with an exaggeratedly perky tone and a somewhat-strained smile. "You always take things so seriously." She pecked him on the lips and gave a tiny wave with one hand, while holding up her empty cup with the other. "I'm gonna go get a refill. Be right back. Love you!"

Brian tried to say the words back, but they stuck in his throat. Instead, he chuckled awkwardly and swatted her playfully on the backside as she trotted off. "Alright, just get out of here."

Why did she keep using the "L" word, for cripes sake? Wasn't it just a bit too early for that?

Then Brian remembered; he'd said it to women he'd been going out with a shorter time than Chelsea. In some of those instances, it's certainly felt like he'd meant it at the time. But he most likely hadn't. And with some of those women, he'd known full well that his "I love you's" were a lie.

So he'd said 'I love you' without meaning it before. Why was he no longer able to do that?

**BREAK!**

Meanwhile, Stewie was occupying his time looking around for a job. So he'd have a better shot at obtaining one, he'd already taken the G.E.D. test and gotten the highest score in the history of the state.

It had been decided that the family would pass Stewie off as Peter's nephew, the child of a half-brother the Fat Man never knew he had, which was a plausible story considering what a philanderer Peter's biological father was, and no one could be surprised that he had more than one illegitimate child out there. So, henceforth, he was to be known as Stu Rupertforth from England (a plausible country of origin considering it was a near neighbor to Ireland). The cover story fit in with his accent, anyway. Lois was able to secure a loan from her father which she plunked down on an expensive but perfectly legit-looking birth certificate as proof of Stewie's new identity.

Stewie had actually been passing a lot of time in Lois's company lately. More than he'd ever imagined he would after he was no longer dependent on her for things like food (he took care of that himself now. Starting with a sandwich, he'd learned to prepare increasingly harder meals. Simultaneously discovering a new hobby and permanently putting an end to any interest he had in breasts), or changing his diapers (potty training at eighteen was an embarrassing thing, but accomplished, he was proud to say, in record time). They were working together on revamping Stewie's room, changing it from a nursery to accommodations more suitable to a young man. She had dreadful taste (of course she would, look at the rest of the house- Tackyland, U.S.A!), but she was as into the redecorating process as her son was, and it was strangely gratifying having her share an interest with him.

Besides, since they'd started on the room project, she'd not once reintroduced the subject of intensive psychotherapy, which she'd broached the day after her son underwent his drastic transformation and she'd discovered his huge arsenal of advanced weaponry.

At any rate, working on the room was a distraction. And before long, he'd succeeded in landing a job, and that was another one. Together, they kept Stewie's mind off Brian. Well, maybe five percent of the time, anyway. And that might be a high estimate. But Stewie figured, with a heart as shattered as his, that was the most he could hope for.

He was just trying to take it a day at a time. The only plan he currently had for his life could be summed up in one sentence: get some money saved up and get the hell out the Griffin house.

**BREAK!**

"Chels, you maybe wanna take it easy on the booze?"

Brian attempted to pry the plastic cup of rum and Coke out of his girlfriend's fingers, but her grip was viselike.

"You're one to scold," she snickered. "I don't know what's with you tonight, but you're usually swimming in your cups by this point in an evening. You drink more than any guy I've ever been with, including the seventeen frat boys the four months I was in college." She gave her hair a flip that sent it right into his face.

Brian spit out the few strands that got into his mouth and sighed, going back to standing there mutely, purely a spectator at tonight's bash, not a participant. Chelsea really was kind of a party girl. He couldn't say that it didn't get old sometimes. But then, he supposed he should have known what he was getting into, seeing as the first night they met she'd been piss-faced, dancing on tables.

Earlier that evening, when Chelsea had teased him for taking seriously her musing about their future children's names (even though Brian had a strong hunch she herself _had _been serious), it had brought to mind other occasions when she'd accused him of being too serious. A few nights back, they were lying in bed after sex, playing twenty questions- what's your favorite color? Guilty pleasure movie?- and she'd asked him what his biggest fear was. She'd said spiders, shuddering and nuzzling up further to him.

Brian had dug deep and decided to trust her.

He'd said mortality.

"How old are you?" she'd laughed.

Physically, he was twenty-six, but mentally he was about fifty-six years. For eight years he'd been a dog. An anthropomorphic, highly intelligent one struggling with his place in the world (it wasn't with other dogs; he had a certain loyalty for his own kind, but really, what a pack of slobbering simpletons. And yet not totally with humans, either). Was it any wonder he'd turned inward, become interested in sniffing out as many answers as he could to just what life was made up of? Chelsea was a beautiful woman of average intelligence who was always game for whatever fun activity her friends had planned for the night. It was doubtful she'd ever felt like she didn't belong.

It was still enough to blow his mind to consider- barring any unforeseen tragic accident or illness- he had fifty or more years of life ahead of him.

Maybe after they got to know each other better, Chelsea would come to understand him, but somehow, just now, in a rare moment of clarity, he realized how unlikely that was ever to happen.

Politics, philosophy, rhetoric, and literature. Such were the things that took up prime real estate in Brian's mind. Such were things she likely never thought about.

He kept hearing Dr. Sharpe's words about him forcing intimacy with women echoing in his head.

What was he doing here? With her? They stood silently in a corner, holding hands, her swaying tipsily to the music, as the party carried on in full swing around them. When she looked at him and smiled, all he could think of was that she was an enormous waste of time.

Maybe, if he and Chelsea had met a month ago, he would have been more content to simply go with the flow of their relationship without analyzing it so much. He didn't even think he knew it until just then, but he'd acquired a new perspective. He _did _court shallow relationships.

He really did want something more. And the kicker was, he'd already been given someone who possessed all the qualities he was looking for in a partner. But that person were the wrong gender. Still, it wasn't as though he was utterly un-attracted to that individual. So he'd passed up the opportunity to actually be with someone who was a good fit for him, perhaps actually find some shred of genuine happiness because- why? He was afraid of the societal difficulties involved? Was he that much of a coward? He was afraid of what might happen with himself and Ste- this person in the future? What happened to wanting to live in the moment?

_Stewie _had everything that he wanted. And Brian had shunned him.

All of a sudden, he feels numb.

He grabs Chelsea, dips her, and kisses her hard. He wants to feel something. He presses her body flush against his, shoves his tongue down her throat, bites her lips. She doesn't object, doesn't try to get loose from his clinch. She's kind of into the rough treatment, anyway. Brian keeps kissing her fiercely, pulling her to him tighter and tighter. But he feels nothing. She's just a body in his arms, nobody, nothing special. He concludes that he needs more vigorous stimulation.

He asks if they can go someplace quiet. More private.

They are in an unlit bedroom, they start fooling around, clothes come off, and they screw.

But she's not the one he's thinking about while he's driving into her.

Afterward, while she's putting on her clothes…at that superbly inappropriate time Brian finally finds his cajones and abruptly declares that he wants to break up.

She doesn't take it well; she yells and screams and cries and cusses him out, chasing him downstairs and out the door. It's an awful scene.

But he has no regrets.

**BREAK!**

Brian felt as though all of his energy had been sapped out of him as he unlocked the front door and quietly stepped inside the house. All was stillness around him, all was enshrouded almost in complete darkness, every visible light in the place being off, and the curtains pulled shut. He took a pause to rest against the door and come back to himself, taking several deep breaths before he felt that he was sufficiently calmed down from the drama of the night- and his epiphany- to descend the stairs to the basement and attempt sleep.

He headed for the kitchen doorway. As he came closer to it, he could just make out the figure of somebody sitting hunched over at the table in the darkened space. The shoulders of the figure were convulsing slightly at regular intervals, and if that wasn't enough to make him quite convinced what was going on, the next thing he detected were the sounds of sniveling and small, desolate moans that told him positively that the person was weeping. Brian frowned in concern and turned on the light.

"Lois?"

She lifted her face from where it had been buried in her hands and turned it towards Brian with all its tear-stained cheeks and red, dripping nose. Quickly she swabbed both with a napkin she snatched up from the table.

"Oh…Brian…hi. I was just- I was just-"

"Crying?" Brian supplied, as he went to her swiftly and put a hand upon her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

Lois sniffled. "Oh, it's…it's just Peter…"

"What happened?" Brian's brow knitted tightly as real worry started to well up in him. "Has he been hurt?"

"Him? No," she scoffed, emitting a harsh, ironic chuckle. She pointed a finger at herself emphatically. "No. _I _have."

Brian's hand on her shoulder drifted down to clasp her arm, bare beneath the short sleeves of her green shirt, as he lowered himself to sit back on his haunches beside the chair. "What's wrong?" he asked a second time.

"He's- he's such an asshole," Lois lamented, her tone equal parts livid and forlorn. "I can't believe I married that man! Listen to this- so Peter and I get invited by Joe to this police department fundraising dinner. We go, and as we're sitting down to eat, I guess Peter figures _hey, roomful of cops, it might be appropriate to regale them all with very vivid tales of my wife and I playing around with handcuffs. _Oh, and when dessert comes, he puts the last of the cobbler on his plate before I can get any, then has the audacity to loudly say I don't need any, my ass is big enough as it is, and he doesn't know how I have the nerve to wear light-colored pants!

But this was_ before _he found out that in the next conference room of the convention center, they've got this comic book thing going on. He makes the excuse that we have to leave the benefit because I have violent diarrhea. So we're in line for the comic book thing, and it's taking a long time to get to the front, so Peter says to the guy who's in charge of letting people in: 'hey, I'm sure you're a virgin. How would you like to lose your virginity to my wife in exchange for moving us up the line?' Well, turns out the guy is a friend of Peter's from high school, and he ignores me for two-and-a-half hours at this freakin' comic book convention to talk to _him_. When I finally manage to nag Peter into leaving, we get in the car, drive about a couple miles, and then get a flat. And we're screwed because Peter doesn't even have a spare or a jack. Just then, guy from high school pulls over and says that Peter left before the Sexy Female Superhero Look-alike Contest, and wouldn't he like to come back? So Peter jumps into his buddy's car and totally abandons me in the worst part of town! I had to call a cab, which took forever to get there, and while I was waiting, a homeless man came along and licked my neck! I'm telling you, Brian, sometimes I don't know how much longer I can put up with that fat bastard's inconsiderateness! Maybe I wouldn't get so upset if crap like this only happened every so often, but Peter's been so horrible so frequently lately! "

"Well, he acted like a major jerk, no question," Brian soothed, wanting to placate Lois, but also remain sort of neutral, seeing as Peter was also his close friend. "But then, when _isn't_ it his fault when there's conflict between you two? You're such an exceptional woman, Lois. No other woman could keep him in line as well as you do."

Lois chewed her lower lip. Brian immediately recognized it as something Stewie tended to do when wrapped in thought and…working himself up to do something. Brian suddenly began to get a weird feeling…

"Oh, Brian," she finally said, with a gushing quality to her voice that took the ex-canine aback. "You're nothing like him, are you? You're thoughtful, and sensitive, and- and you have a brain!" she finished with a snort, shaking her head. As it came back around to face Brian again, the emerald green eyes in it stared straight into his own and Lois added to her praise, "Oh, and look it how handsome you are!"

The feeling of foreboding grew. Although Lois had complimented him in similar ways in the past, her tone had never before been so warm and gooey while doing it. And, as he continued to look into her eyes, he had to suck in a breath at what he saw there.

No woman had ever looked at him that way before. Like she was begging him to be her hero. To whisk her away from her dismal life as an unappreciated housewife. If only for a night.

He used to dream of having her look at him like that. Now he was actually a little repelled by it. And embarrassed for her. This wasn't the graceful, capable woman who was the backbone of an entire family. This was a quite unwelcome glimpse at another side of Lois, not the paragon of womanly, wifely, motherly virtue that he'd always perceived her as. This was just a woman who had to look for a little escapism when the going got tough. Kind of like himself (although he obviously wasn't a woman).

Not hot.

The next thing he knew, she had looped her arms around him and her lips were moving quickly into the vicinity of his own.

Lois had never taken him seriously as a suitor when he'd been a dog. Now, here he was, same mind and personality and heart, just in a different physical form and she was suddenly considering him an option. This, too, was a turnoff.

Brian stretched his neck back, inclining his head away from her, and practically yelped, "Lois- don't."

"Why? This is what you've always wanted." She leaned in to kiss his neck and Brian's eyes fell shut as her soft, perfect lips made contact with his flesh, making it break out in goose pimples. An internal frisson of desire went through Brian, but it wasn't as intense as it once would've been. And for the first time, his brain was screaming _wrong, wrong, wrong! _as opposed to merely whispering it, shouted down by his body loudly encouraging him to _go for it, dude!_

"Lois." He tried to speak calmly, remind himself what would be destroyed forever if he indulged himself in a weak moment. After all, it didn't follow that just because his passion had cooled dramatically since the height of his enthrallment with her he wouldn't possibly give in, sleep with her, seeking comfort after the emotional tumult he'd been going through the past month. She stopped kissing his neck, and he grasped onto her shoulders and held her at arms length. "If we do this, you'll regret it for the rest of your life. You love Peter. You two are a perfect match. This will ruin your relationship with him. It will harm your relationship with your kids, too, and fracture this family."

"Let's not think about consequences now," she recommended in a sultry voice, her face coming towards his once more, tilting, seeking his lips.

Again, Brian held her back. "No. Let's _do_ think about them now. While there's still time to prevent them from happening. I am- I am _beyond_ flattered, but you're- you're the wife of my best friend, and I just can't hurt him like that."

Lois seemed a little bit tetchy now. "That never used to bother you enough to stop you from making a move."

"Well, I can't do it to you, either. I can't let you throw away everything for me. Or myself, either, for that matter. More recently I've given it some thought and-we're- we're not right for each other, Lois. Us hooking up would be nothing but a mistake."

"Yes," Lois said slowly. She seemed stunned by his rejection and he couldn't blame her for being so. "Yes. You're right. Thank you." She didn't sound as though she wholly meant it.

"Are- are we good?" asked Brian nervously, looking up at her as she arose from her chair.

There was a tense silence. Lois hesitated, almost glaring at him, then abruptly smiled, thin-lipped. "Of course we are, Brian." Her eyes remained hard.

After she'd shuffled out of the room, Brian, still kneeling on the floor, grabbed onto the chair beside him for support. Lois had actually come onto him…and even more astonishing than that, he'd rejected her! The knowledge was overwhelming. He was obliged to remain bracing himself against the chair for numerous minutes to recover his equilibrium.

Brian gradually got to his feet. He just knew that he couldn't sleep there tonight, and departed to go check into a hotel.

**BREAK!**

But he was back by dinner the next evening, when Peter and Lois announced that they were going on a trip to Monaco to "rekindle their romance". A trip they were leaving for the very next morning.

It was obvious they'd managed to work out their difficulties from the night before.

"We just came back from Hawaii," said Stewie irritably, as though resenting his parents' planned trip for some odd reason.

"That was a _family _vacation," Lois reminded him. She looked tenderly at Peter at the other end and rose from the table, walking over to his side and laying her hand atop his while gazing lovingly into his eyes. "This time it's going to be just the two of us. Our anniversary's coming up soon, anyway, so we're due for a romantic getaway. That'll last two whole weeks."

She then transferred her gaze to Brian, and it seemed colder than usual. "Oh, and Brian, while we're gone, you may want to start looking around for employment. It was a little different when you were the family dog but now I think it's time you did something to earn your keep around here." It was plain by the tone of her voice that it was rather more than a suggestion.

Brian was the last to leave the dining room that night, as he sat and considered what he intended on doing once he got out of there. He attempted to plan his speech out as best he could, but although he could think of many pretty ways to phrase the message he was about to deliver, he couldn't think of any situation- including this one- where it would sound organic for him to speak them. And instead of _gaining _courage the longer he sat there, it seemed to be failing him by the moment.

So he got up.

Brian spotted Stewie sitting on the couch. He had to admit that the young man was, truthfully, good-looking indeed. His hair was a base color of a medium brown like Peter's, with hues of Lois's red mixed in making it richer and warmer. Auburn, a color Brian found quite appealing. And the way the little wispy side pieces and the fringe he had for bangs curled around his face was adorable. (Good Lord, Brian'd had just called another grown man adorable! In his own head, yes, but still! Oh, well, it was progress, he supposed…) He was a little too thin, but then the odds of Brian feeling that any attraction at all could exist toward a burlier man were not good.

Brian had made a choice and he was sticking by it. He was going to go into that front room and do something he should have done a long time ago. He was determined. But he was still a bundle of raw nerves as he approached the sofa, with the intention of claiming a spot beside the younger man.

"Stewie, I need to talk to you," he said as he started to sit down, but his ass hadn't even touched the cushion before Stewie sprang up and announced in a brittle tone that he was going to bed.

"You're going to bed? It's eight o'clock!"

"Well, you know, early bird gets the worm and all that. The bird's the word," Stewie remarked tonelessly on his way to the stairs. "Not to mention I've got an early shift tomorrow morning."

"You got a job? I didn't know that. Where at? Doing what?"

"I hardly see how that's any of your business."

Brian groaned and pinched the skin between his eyes. Already Stewie's demeanor was winding him up, but the record of most words spoken to him by the kid in a month had just been broken, and Brian celebrated that. Now if he could only make him stay put and listen…

"Can I just say something to you real quick?" Brian asked a little frantically.

Stewie raised a cool eyebrow and turned fully toward couch, an invitation for Brian to spill it, and spill it quick. If only for that moment, he wasn't going anywhere.

Brian continued, inside quaking with agitation, but endeavoring to speak collectedly, "I want to talk to you. I just need you to hear me out once. I want to explain a few things, and I'm warning you- I'm not going to give up until I've said all I need to, and you've heard every last bit of it. So it's your choice: you can look forward to me harassing you every day to get you to listen to what I've got to say, or we can just get it over with now."

Stewie looked daggers at him but after a slight hesitation grumbled, "Fine."

Brian sat down on and Stewie sort of dropped apathetically onto the couch, on the nethermost spot from the former dog, arms crossed sullenly over his thin chest.

Brian launched right in: "I've behaved shamefully. I am fully aware that I gave you to understand that we had entered into a romantic relationship together and so my actions were, in fact, disloyal to you. We should have talked things out before I did anything so traitorous and rash, everything would have been so much better then. But still….you- you could've been a little more understanding. It was all new to _me. _It was something _you'd _had planned out in your head for a long time but I'd never even considered- it wasn't even an option until-," Brian sighed, becoming impatient with himself for not being able to express this even semi-cogently. "And t-then you just expected me to jump on board without any reservations at all? It was too much, too soon. The change freaked me out and I- I slipped up but you yourself said you foresaw something like that happening, but- d-don't think that I'm trying to switch the blame around and pin it on you! It's know it's my fault. I hurt you and I _never_ meant to do that, and I'm- I'm more sorry than I can say!" He was panting a little by the time he ended his dialogue.

"Don't, Brian!" Stewie half-shouted, clearly choking back tears. Brian was somewhat surprised by this sudden burst of emotion following an attitude that had been so unimpressed only moments ago, but then Stewie _had_ always been prone to mood swings. Brian regarded him sympathetically and sent him a questioning look.

"I'll forgive you, and I have no business forgiving you!"

"Ah, don't be that way," said Brian with a playfulness that belied the keen sense of anxiety that was currently preying upon him. He edged closer to Stewie on the sofa. "Just go ahead and forgive me."

Stewie stared down at the floor, his expression woeful and conflicted. With his next words, he did _not_ say that he forgave Brian, he only said, "Don't apologize. The heart wants what it wants, after all, and it's pretty clear what _yours_ wants is convention. To have that traditional life with a beautiful girl by your side. It wants the storybook romance- and I'm not talking about a book by Brent Hartinger- even more than it wants to know true love."

"No, it _doesn't_ want that," Brian disclaimed vehemently. "It wants…it wants…"

Rather than t_ell _Stewie what it wanted, Brian figured it was about time he made a conscious decision to act on his feelings for Stewie and let them speak for themselves. Someone might walk in at any moment, but that didn't matter. Not as much as getting his message across to Stewie did. He sighed out his nervous reservations and with a speeding heart rate, threw caution to the wind and pulled the younger man toward him, capturing his lips with his own, muffling the startled noise Stewie emitted at being so unexpectedly grabbed.

Stewie's lips were tightly compressed, refusing to kiss back, his form so taut it was like he'd turned to stone. Stewie's hands, trapped between their two bodies, pressed their palms protestingly against Brian's chest. Brian was about to despair when suddenly Stewie's resolve apparently broke and the younger man clutched desperately at the fabric of the former dog's shirt. Brian felt him sort of melt in his arms, and soon Stewie's lips were oscillating eagerly against his.

They parted, and Stewie released a quivering sigh of something like reluctantly-expressed bliss while Brian coughed self-consciously and averted his gaze briefly until he'd caught his breath and willed enough of his blush away to turn toward his companion and say earnestly,

"Let's try. Please? I- I want to give us a try. I know now that that's really what I want I to do, and I'm going to put all I've got into it. Please? Stewie…"

Stewie's eyes had an inscrutable sheen over them as they met Brian's. "Brian, I…I can't…"

Sorrow pierced Brian at what other words it seemed 'I can't' would be a prelude to. He swallowed hard, feeling a dark wave of depression roll over him. He had his own 'I can't'. _I can't believe I blew this chance…_

"I can't say no to you. Why can't I say no to you?" Brian's head snapped up as Stewie finished up his sentence, the teenager's voice warbling uncharacteristically, eyes and cheeks aglow. "Maybe it's because I'm disinclined to throw my happiness away just to punish you. I still want to be with you more than anything in the world…but I would not have waited for you forever, you know!" He tossed his head back with as much pride as he could muster. "You are_ so_ lucky you realized your mistake in time."

Brian reached forward and took Stewie's hands, squeezing them firmly in both of his, locking gazes with the younger man and swore to him with incredible sincerity, "I want_ this_. I want it, and I want to start it out right. I'm going to be the model boyfriend, you just wait and see-"

"The model boyfriend, huh? Don't you think that may be aiming a tad high?' asked Stewie with a smirk that was devoid of, if not all, then at least most of its customary condescension. It was mainly affectionately ribbing. "You never managed that with any of your previous significant others."

"But you'll make me be one," Brian countered. Not until he'd said it had he realized how much he was counting on that statement's truth. "I do want you to understand my concerns, though. At this early stage, so many things can get screwed up so easily. We haven't even been out on one date, Stewie. Rather than plunge right into the middle of a relationship, how about we start at the beginning? Yes, we know each other very well as friends, but as more than that? It's gonna take time."

"Okay." Stewie nodded. "I can work with that."

Brian had never seen so much happiness on a person's face as was showing on Stewie's at that moment. Looking at him with the world's broadest, most exultant smile, Stewie inquired, "So…what happens now?'

"First things first," said Brian, standing while still holding onto Stewie's hands.

"So, tomorrow night, I'm going to take you out on a date."

_To be continued…_

**Read and review please!**


	7. Caught in the Act

**Please forgive me for taking so long to publish an update. After my last semester of school, I of course had the holidays to keep me occupied, and after that I just essentially felt like cutting myself a break and not doing much of anything that resembled an "obligation". And yes, I know how silly that sounds, when it's clearly my own choice to be writing this story, and it's totally a leisure activity. But I **_**do**_** have a pretty strong sense of obligation to you, my dearest readers, who enjoy this fic and have been waiting for it to continue. **

**This sense of obligation is partly what propelled me to resume writing it again, because, to be honest, after watching **_**New Kidney in Town**_**, I wasn't even sure I would be working on this fic at all anymore. As a matter of fact, I was pretty near certain I was done with the whole FG fandom. For three days, I genuinely despised that show. Well, I've been mostly mollified out of that mood now, and I'll just leave it at that.**

**In any case, without school, updates should come at a more regular pace now. **

**Warning: this chapter contains…oh, to be safe, let's call it lemon. Even though the sections are not as vividly-descriptive as some others I've written.**

**Disclaimer: I do not, never have, and never will own Family Guy.**

**Chapter Seven: Caught in the Act**

"You bought me flowers?" Stewie stared at the beauteous blooms in surprise. He'd just arrived home from work and upon opening the front door, discovered Brian on the other side of it, awaiting his return with a large arrangement of lovely, perfectly-formed roses in a variety of colors.

"Don't you like them?" Brian asked, surprised at how diffident the question came out sounding. Usually he was better at disguising his pre-date jitters. He was well-versed in the regular rituals of courtship, but he wasn't at all certain they still applied in a case such as this. Feeling foolish, he started to pull the bouquet back. Thirty seconds into their first date and here he was, already making mistakes.

"No, no, I love them," Stewie insisted, grabbing greedily for the flowers and holding them beneath his nose to take a whiff.

"I thought you would," Brian, confidence uplifted a bit by Stewie's reassurance, snickered jestingly, giving Stewie a playful nudge with his elbow.

Brian had decided to take Stewie to a play and then out to dinner.

"I won a pair of tickets from a radio station call-in contest and I'd been wondering who I could take," Brian explained to his date about the play as they climbed into the car. "I'm thrilled that it's someone who actually has a genuine appreciation for theatre."

They drove downtown to where the play was being shown. Brian inwardly squirmed over the irony that the play was _Sexual Perversity in Quahog, _the location in the title changed for the Quahog Community Theatre's version of the David Mamet play, _Sexual Perversity in Chicago. _But in the end he was left chuckling to himself about it. And chuckling out loud, along with Stewie, at the sub-par acting and thread-bare staging. Actually, an usher had to come over and give them a warning when their laughter became a bit to hearty due to the male lead acquiring a pugnacious case of the hiccups during a crucial love scene.

Following the play, Brian and Stewie headed on over to Qu'est-ce que pu Restaurant to top off their evening with a delicious gourmet meal.

Were those glances of undisguised adoration Stewie kept sending Brian's way something new, or a longstanding habit the erstwhile dog had somehow managed to be oblivious to before now? How could he have missed them? Stewie seemed to be taking seriously Brian's request that they proceed slowly in their changed relationship. Brian had been concerned- both because he sincerely believed that taking it slow was for the best and also, well, to be honest, he didn't want anyone knowing about them yet- that Stewie might lay some serious PDA on him tonight, but he didn't try anything. The only time he'd even touched Brian so far had been ten minutes ago when Brian told a joke and Stewie, laughing, reached across the table and flirtatiously tapped the blond man on the hand.

What was weird was that, numerous times when he'd hung out with Stewie in the past, when they were a dog and baby, he'd have these uncomfortable moments, when it would occur to him that the dynamics it was natural for them to slip into when together, a certain chemistry they shared made him feel like they were on a date. And he could almost mistake their relationship for something it was not supposed to be. But now, when they actually _were_ out on a date, it didn't feel like one at all. It felt easy, and natural, and carefree. It didn't feel like they were going though a complicated dance of trying to impress one another; they were able to totally be themselves with each other.

Then, back in the car, the atmosphere changed. The first awkward moment of the night came from the contrast of being in such close quarters, after having being surrounded by other people for the last several hours. Sitting side by side in the darkened space in the parking lot of the restaurant, knowing the date had gone well, they both felt pressure to express their satisfaction with the evening, but Stewie didn't want to risk saying or doing anything that might cause it to appear like he was pushing for too much, too soon again, and Brian just felt plain old awkward making a move on his longtime friend.

Stewie at length settled for saying, "I had a really great time tonight, Brian."

Brian tried to keep his smile from seeming too nervous. "Yeah, me too."

Stewie leaned over and gave him an innocent kiss on the cheek. Brian turned to look at the younger as he settled himself back into his own seat, and they smiled into each other's eyes.

Once they'd returned home, Stewie thanked him for a lovely evening, told him goodnight, and meandered insouciantly toward the stairs, apparently content to let that be the conclusion to their date. But for some reason, Brian didn't feel content with leaving their evening like this. _Wait!, _he thought, and as he thought it, the word inadvertently burst from him.

Stewie's head moved in super-slow motion to look over his shoulder, an eyebrow arched high, quizzical and intrigued.

"I, uh, I," He was sure he meant to ask Stewie if maybe he wanted to hang out awhile longer, just chill in front of the T.V. or something, but what somehow came out instead was, "I haven't seen your room since you redecorated."

Stewie eyed him speculatively, then turned and walked back toward Brian, slowly, keeping his shrewd gaze fastened all the time on Brian's face. "Okay," he said softly, reaching out for Brian's hand, curling his own around it, and leading the older man up the stairs and down the hall to his room.

"Only…" Stewie hesitated a few steps outside of it, biting his lip and looking coy. "I don't know if I should. You might get the wrong idea, if I let you into my room on the first date; you might think I'm a slut."

Brian chuckled a little and coughed embarrassedly into his fist. "Just- just show me your room, Stewie."

Stewie and Lois had stuck more or less with the same color scheme that had adorned the nursery. Stewie's comforter was still blue, but a deeper hue of it and without the childish planetary pattern. It looked like it was made of crushed velvet. Sitting atop the nightstand beside the bed was an art deco lamp with a white base and a shade the same color as the bedspread. A long, jam-packed bookshelf monopolized one full wall of the room, and on the other walls there was some art, abstract stuff and graphic prints, but the overall effect was spared from looking like an Andy Warhol wet dream by these paintings having been done mainly in subdued earth tones.

"Well…what do you think?" Stewie asked, obviously desiring Brian's approbation.

"It's nice," Brian replied. "Very tastefully done."

Stewie smiled, and the two of them proceeded to just stand there awkwardly in silence for the next several moments. Brian was about to excuse himself, his hopes that Stewie would sleep well were on the tip of his tongue when felt Stewie shuffle closer to him. Stewie peaked up at Brian through half-lidded eyes and asked bashfully, "Kiss goodnight?"

Brian tensed slightly, heart skipping a beat. The reason behind his hesitancy wasn't that he didn't _like_ kissing Stewie. If that was the case he wouldn't be dating him. No, he _did _like kissing Stewie, he always had- even back when Stewie was a baby and they'd had to kiss as part of some absurd fiasco they'd managed to get embroiled in. It had long been one of his secret shames. Rather, Brian's qualms sprung from his utter lack of convincement that Stewie- despite asking for the kiss in such a meek and unassuming manner - didn't have an agenda that went against the take-baby-steps plan that Brian was so set on adhering to. And furthermore, the way Stewie's eyes sparkled with such yearning made him look so beguiling right then, Brian wasn't that sure he trusted _himself_. "You kiss on the first date?"

"Oh, I'm not so prim as all that," Stewie smirked, moving around so he was in front of Brian. "What could be the harm in one simple kiss?"

Extending both arms, he laid his palms against the wall beside Brian, whose breath faltered as he was effectively blocked in and Stewie slowly went in for the kill. The white-haired man's eyes drifted shut when he felt his prominent nose being grazed by another; then, a mouth slid very softly over his own. Stewie brought a hand down to gently cradle the side of Brian's face. Lips massaged lips tenderly, slowly sampling one another. Little by little, Brian began to relax. He sighed against Stewie's lips. It felt too right to continue so diplomatically. Brian felt the romance of the moment start to carry him away and instinctively deepened the kiss. As Brian's tongue invaded Stewie's mouth, he felt Stewie's curl around it in greeting. The two muscles caressed each other with audacity, then began to wrestle, and to boldly explore more, delve further, push harder. Both men emptied suppressed sounds of excitement into each other's mouths. Stewie backed Brian further up against the wall as Brian's hands enthusiastically stroked over and over the younger man's back, so what had begun as a sweet, gentle kiss was transformed into one of deep passion that they were both absolutely lost in.

**BREAK!**

While a Stewie in love wasn't anything new, a Stewie _happily_ in love was another matter. He'd spent the majority of his life being in love with Brian, but he had oftentimes had cause to negatively regard that love. Oh, how he used to wish that love away! It had changed him, and Stewie hadn't always been comfortable with that change. Back when he and Brian had first started being thrown together in all sorts of outrageous adventures and misadventures, Stewie simply didn't understand why he was suddenly coming to consider Brian as being worthy of his valuable time. He didn't need any other friend but Rupert, thank you very much, and Brian…Brian was just a sad alcoholic dog with an ego problem, the proof of whose idiocy was that he was enamored with Lois. But they continued to gravitate toward each other, and eventually Stewie knew he'd reached the point where there was no denying it anymore; for some reason or another, he _liked_ spending time with Brian, and would a million times choose it over going back to working alone, as it were, or with only Rupert, stalwart companion though he was.

And then, when they'd gone under cover to follow Meg and Mayor West, Brian had kissed him. Given him his first kiss. It had one of the defining moments of Stewie's life, not only because a first-ever kiss is a milestone in anyone's existence, but because he'd actually _felt _something when he _totally_ hadn't expected to. It was the Fourth of July in Stewie's heart when that happened, with all the fireworks going off. It had shaken him up, but he told himself it was just sexual desire. It was easier to accept that way, even though he'd rather he hadn't had this kind of reaction with a guy. He used to think he'd be catching a break by turning out gay, but since then he'd gotten the idea that there might be some substantial difficulties attached to living that lifestyle.

But it _wasn't _just sexual desire. And he wasn't able to delude himself about that for very long. The knowledge just kept sneaking up upon him in little increments until one random day he'd woken up and known wholeheartedly that he'd fallen in love with Brian Griffin.

In that cartoon, _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_, when the Grinch's heart swells to more than two times its original size, a smile of blissful goodwill simultaneously grows on that green goon's face. In truth, as Stewie found out, it _wasn't_ a particularly delightful revelation to go from not giving a shit to caring so much that it felt as though your stomach lining was being scraped away at from the inside with a rusty hook whenever he imagined some sort of horrible fate befalling his beloved. Also, it wasn't the most fun thing in the world, being in love with someone who stubbornly refused to love you back the way you wanted them to.

But Stewie had never lost hope, and sometimes, just sometimes, hope was rewarded.

He had to admit to himself that he was a trifle bummed out that their electric embrace last night hadn't led to anything steamier; Brian had regrettably pulled away before Stewie could take action to promote things going a bit - or a lot- further. But Stewie consoled himself with the thought that he'd heard good things about delayed gratification. When they finally did it…again…it was going to be magnificent.

Stewie hummed a little tune as he cheerfully prepared breakfast for the love of his life, then floated downstairs to deliver the lovingly-cooked meal.

"_Briiiaaannn_!" he sang out loudly once he stood at the side of the ex dog's airbed. Brian's whole body jerked, his large nose producing a short series of loud, congested-sounding snorts as he abruptly woke, and sat, up.

"H-huh? What the hell? Stewie?"

"I've got breakfast for you, Bee-rye," he chirped, plopping down upon the mattress and wielding a spoon loaded with oatmeal.

"Stewie…damn it." His voice was tired and cranky. "I didn't wanna get up yet, and I don't wanna eat right now."

Stewie chose to ignore this. "C'mon, Brian, here comes the airplane!" he trilled, giggling maniacally at Brian's efforts to dodge the incoming projectile in the shape of a spoon.

Both men looked up suddenly at the unexpected sound of footsteps pounding down the stairs, and pretty soon Chris stood before them. He glanced curiously at Stewie, wrapped in a robe and sitting on the bed with Brian, spoon-feeding the man.

Stewie stood up quickly, frowning.

"Hey, whatcha- whatcha guys doing?"

"Nothing whatever," his newly-elder brother replied. "Did you need anything?" he asked a little testily.

"Yeah, I wanted some breakfast. You've been cooking, haven't you?"

"That wasn't for you," Stewie informed him bluntly.

"But I'm hungry!" complained Chris.

"So? Cook your blasted own breakfast!"

"I'm not allowed to touch the stove," the tubby blond shamefully disclosed.

"Oh, for crying out-" Stewie grumbled. "Just go pour yourself a bowl of cereal, then!" he shouted, humor clearly wearing thin.

Chris looked doubtful. "I-I don't know. I've never tried that before. Seems like it would be pretty difficult."

"You know what, Chris?" Stewie asked, voice deeply sarcastic. "I have faith in you."

"Well, that's nice and all, but I don't have faith in me."

Stewie cursed under his breath and Brian laughed, but his amusement was short-lived, for Stewie gave him a sharp push off the bed and towed him along with him upstairs to see about breakfast for Chris.

**BREAK!**

Exactly a dozen days had passed since their first date. Since then they'd hung out together at home whenever Stewie wasn't at work and had gone out five times. They'd went to the movies, for drinks, bowling, taken long walks around town, basically every cliché dating activity there was. Tonight they'd played miniature golf.

So far their coupling hadn't included any _coupling._ That was to say, they hadn't really done anything physical yet. The demonstrations of affection they'd engaged in had been limited to a good many ardent kisses and some light above-the-belt petting and groping. It was driving Brian crazy with desire, to have all these enticing interludes without any of them coming to what would have been the natural conclusion had Stewie been a woman. And yet he also couldn't help feeling a bit chary thinking about when the time would finally come to consummate their relationship being taken to the next level.

And _this_…_really _seemed to be inviting something- this lying on Stewie's bed together, _so close together_ on his single bed, on their sides facing each other, discussing the outing they'd recently gotten back from.

"I really think you _have _to have been golfing way more times than you claim to. You were so good tonight!" Stewie complimented, looking at Brian with adulation and swinging a leg up over one of Brian's thighs.

"You flatter me, Stewie," Brian laughed, a little disconcerted by Stewie's action and the new relative distance between their pelvises. "And you'd better stop. Since when do you feel the need to heap fawning remarks on me?"

"Well…I don't know if I've let on," Stewie jested, tracing Brian's jaw with a pinkie, which Brian mischievously nipped at, making Stewie squeal and then laugh. "But I'm sort of crazy into you."

"You don't say." Brian grinned cockily.

"Now the mission is to get _you_ into _me_."

"I'm into you," Brian responded automatically, surprised and disappointed the younger man hadn't gotten that by now, then caught the pointed look Stewie was throwing his way and with it, the double meaning of what his companion had just said. "Oh." His stomach did a cartwheel. "Tonight?"

"Look here, I'm not going to beg for it," said Stewie in a brisk, efficient sort of tone that just about, although not entirely, covered up an underlying quality that quaked slightly with suppressed desire. "But Chris's sleeping over at a friend's house, and Meg went off to crash the cool kids' camping trip and wreak a terrible vengeance upon them, or whatever she was talking about at breakfast. We have the house to ourselves, and who knows when that chance is going to present itself again? Peter and Lois are due back the evening after next. So I'm just letting you know, if you want this at all right now, I'd really, _really_ like to get laid tonight. I don't know if it's from being around all those shafts and balls and whacking and driving into holes today, but I'm _totally_ in the mood."

He stared at Brian lustfully, and the older man stared back somewhat doubtfully. It would be so easy to let himself become aroused right now: the air between and all around them throbbed, was thick with the peculiar magnetism which was exclusive to them. Their gazes were latched firmly onto each other's, and -there seemed to be something challenging in Stewie's and Brian knew that he couldn't, wouldn't back down now. He was _always_ going to be nervous. At that moment, he was as ready as he'd ever be.

"Let's do it."

Their mouths collided fiercely, slick tongues instantaneously going to war- a long, protracted war. When the kiss ended, they both sat back and each began undoing the buttons on their own shirts. Brian's fingers trembled as they set about their task, something which did not escape Stewie's notice.

"You're nervous," he taunted in amusement.

"I'm nervous as hell," Brian admitted with a very rickety laugh.

Stewie grinned mockingly a moment longer, then owned, glancing down at his thumbs and twiddling them self-consciously, "I'm actually a little nervous myself. I mean, you're not intoxicated this time, and if I do something wrong, you'll pick up on it."

"You won't do anything wrong," Brian assured the teenager.

Stewie smiled in evident gratitude and brushed Brian's fingers away from his shirt buttons, and undertook the removal of the ex dog's shirt himself. Once he'd accomplished his mission, he inclined his head and kissed Brian's chest with a tenderness that startled the blond man. There was something near-worshipful about the way those lips moved with soft, moist fluidity all over the nude torso, making Brian's stomach quiver on the inside.

At length Stewie ceased paying tribute at the altar of Brian's chest and sat up straight, doffing his own shirt to reveal an upper body that was very slender, almost concave near the breastbone, with the most meager dusting of hair ('peach fuzz' would be a better term) on it, and forming the happy trail that disappeared into his jeans.

They lay down, facing each other as they had been before, but this time held one another close, their unclothed chests making sweet contact. The sensation gave Brian the shivers. This was it. He was going to -of his own free will- _choose _to have sex with another male. Brian kept waiting to be repelled by the situation. But despite having different things than usual nudging against him, he wasn't, and when Stewie repositioned himself slightly so that the bulges in their trousers aligned, Brian discovered a plus side to his partner also having an appendage between his legs. Their erections rubbed together and a hot wave of pleasure shot through Brian's gut.

They both let out a moan at the same time, at which point their eyes flew open to meet, and the two men simultaneously cracked up. Then Stewie's laughter subsided, the mirth going from his eyes as they clouded over with lust.

They couldn't get their pants and underwear off fast enough. As he shed these remaining clothing items, Brian could feel Stewie's eyes upon him, but- although a part of him was rabidly curious- he was too embarrassed to look openly to see what Stewie looked like completely starkers. When they were both naked, they quickly shimmied beneath the covers, Brian on top of Stewie, in the midst of an avid liplock they were unwilling to break and so kept their kiss intact, Brian noticing the slide of satin sheets beneath him. Without disengaging his lips from Brian's, Stewie reached over to the nightstand, pulled open a drawer, and withdrew a bottle of lubricant.

Finally the kiss had to end, and Brian waited while Stewie stuck a hand behind himself and down, fingers greased with the contents of the bottle as he lubricated and stretched his own opening. Brian would have taken on this duty, in spite of feeling somewhat squeamish and put-off by it, but Stewie didn't give him the chance. The mad anticipation in his eyes obvious, his breathing audible and slightly faster than normal, Stewie made a rushed job of the preparation, so rushed that Brian feared it wasn't enough, but felt too awkward to argue. He initiated ingress with as much care as he could, exercising every ounce of his restraint to enter the younger man very gradually, but still Stewie whimpered and teared up.

"I'm sorry," Brian murmured, dropping his head to hide it in Stewie's shoulder. The arms that he was bracing himself on trembled and trickles of perspiration were popping up all over his body.

"Unavoidable," responded Stewie around a pant, a little dazedly.

Brian started to slowly plunge in and out, continuing that pace for a couple of minutes. "You feel…You feel-" his breath was already ragged, so early into the act, and it took a great amount of concentration of effort not to just lose control and do what he was so tempted to: bang Stewie hard and fast into the bed, simply selfishly taking what he wanted from that hot, tight place. However, he waited until he had Stewie adjusted to the intrusion and adrift in the sea of passion himself, catching the rhythm and moving in sync with Brian. "_More!" _the younger man practically wailed, and after that, Brian increased his speed exponentially.

"_Yes, Brian, yes,_" Stewie hissed from between clenched teeth as they rocked together. Brian thrust energetically, but his mind remained uncommonly sharp for someone in the throws of such intense passion, and he found himself analyzing even while in the process of fucking. He was aware of sensing that this experience had a surreal quality about it, but it was also wonderfully real and raw and somehow made him feel more…_alive_ than he had having sex with probably any other partner. It was far less about sexuality than it was about outer body heat and inner body heat and affection and connection and the feel of sex-clammy skin against more sex-clammy- _oh. Ohhh…!_

Experimentally, Stewie clenched around him and then grinned up at him wickedly. "_Fuck_. Stewie, don't-" He was trying so hard to hold it together, determined that Stewie would achieve a thundering completion this time around, but he was afraid he himself was going to lose it at any moment. He hadn't left a partner unsatisfied who _could_ be satisfied for the longest time, but right now he worried that he would.

As if he could read Brian's mind, Stewie panted out, "Almost there, Brian, almost there." He wasn't lying; not half a minute later he cried out hoarsely, shuddered, and then absolutely stilled, and Brian's orgasm surged through him almost immediately after, the former dog adding his sounds of ecstasy to those of his lover.

Ironically, Stewie was the one to soothe _Brian, _by far the more sexually-experienced of the two_, _after their lovemaking, wiping his sweaty brow with a corner of the bed sheet, stroking his hair, and guiding his head to rest on the younger man's shoulder.

"How was that?" Brian puffed out, once he'd recuperated his breath enough to speak at all.

Stewie emitted a satisfied hum. "You were a wonderful lover, Brian," he mumbled, then dropped off into an easy sleep. Brian smirked over at him. Eighteen years old. All libido and no stamina. He gently brushed a lock of hair out of Stewie's face and the smirk altered into a warm and indulgent smile before he shut his eyes and gave himself gratefully over to slumber.

**BREAK!**

"Hi," Stewie greeted him the next morning, almost shyly, quite unlike the unfazed tone of voice he'd had the morning following their first night together.

Brian clutched the covers to his chest rather like a modest woman would do, then gave a sigh and had to mentally laugh at himself a little for being so uptight. Slowly he let go his hold on the blankets and allowed them to slip down and pool round his waist.

"Hey," he returned, passably casual.

"Yeah…so that was…" Stewie searched his vast mental word bank for the right adjective, but, shockingly, came up empty-handed. "_Wow_," was what he finally had to settle on, making his voice breathless and full of wonder. "Huh?" he prompted Brian after a beat, anxiously seeking his agreement.

Brian looked over to him and offered what was at first a rather tentative semblance of a smile, but as he answered honestly, became one that stretched from ear to ear. "It was really, really great."

Stewie grinned widely in return, then wriggled down further into the sheets and crossed his arms in self-satisfaction over his chest. A silence fell upon them and lasted for a little too long. Brian knew that Stewie felt it, too, by the younger man's suddenly stiffened posture and the awkward cough he produced.

"So…how 'bout those Knicks?"

Surprised, Brian answered, "I, uh, I don't really follow basketball, Stewie…"

"No! No, I didn't think that you did, it's just something that people say when…I was just trying to find something to talk- oh! Did you happen to see the latest issue of _The_ _New Yorker_?"

The conversation flowed effortlessly from that point on until it tapered to a natural and comfortable pause, and Stewie stretched his arm out overhead, declaring, "Well, can't stay in bed _all _day…" and with that moved to sit up.

His face twisted slightly. "_Ah!" _He hissed lowly under his breath, the undertaking of shifting his position obviously uncomfortable, and however irrational it was, Brian felt a pang at being the cause of this, murmuring again that he was sorry.

"Oh, for pity's sake, will you stop apologizing?" Stewie exclaimed, letting an exasperated little puff of air escape his nose, ruffling the choppy bangs that hung not far above it. "It's nothing to concern yourself about, and as I've said already, some pain was inevitable, seeing as I'm not quite used to being penetrated yet. Besides, the first time hurt worse."

His companion remorsefully shook his head. "I was afraid I was too rough with you that night."

Stewie groaned exasperatedly and flopped back on the bed. "Will. You let. It go? There was no irreparable damage caused, and I promise I don't hold it against you in the least."

"But still," Brian stubbornly persisted, "I wasn't as careful with you as I would have been sober?"

"If you _must _know, then no," Stewie allotted, making an impatient type of gesture with his hand. He sat back up and put his feet on the floor again. "I think you were trying to be, but it was all rather sloppy."

As Brian lay there reproaching himself, his expression reflected every iota of his compunction. To get him to stop looking that way, Stewie bent down and kissed him passionately. He wanted to show him once and for all that his heart held no hard feelings about Brian's involuntary inconsiderateness the first time they'd been intimate. When Stewie pulled back from the kiss, he realized that there _was_, in fact a hard feeling, but it origins were in a place located significantly lower than his heart.

Stewie gazed down at Brian panting, pupils slightly dilated, looking hungry.

"Take me again."

"What?" Brian was honestly taken aback. "I thought you just said you were sore."

"I don't care, I just - God, I just need you!" he declared in a husky, vehement whisper, crawling on top of Brian and straddling his lap. He leaned in and sat about plundering the former dog's mouth urgently.

_Hmm, I should have known I'd create a nymphomaniac_, thought Brian to himself with amusement, responding to the heated kiss with enthusiasm_. _He grabbed Stewie tight, rolled him over, and another bout of vigorous sexual aerobics ensued.

**BREAK!**

Brian couldn't remember the last time he'd had so much sex in a twenty-four hour period. Well, a _twelve-hour_ period, really. Following their morning tryst, Brian had decided to make this a lazy morning and fell asleep while Stewie grabbed a shower. When the former dog woke for the second time that morning, he'd arisen, taken his own turn to wash up, then wandered downstairs and into the kitchen. He found Stewie, dressed and with an apron accenting his tee and jeans, flipping flapjacks over the stove. When they were done, and Brian sat eating his share of pancakes, Stewie had ducked below the table and blown him. It was a clumsy, messy job as could only be expected from someone who'd never done such a thing before. But Stewie was earnestly industrious, trying out every trick he must have read about to orally pleasure a guy, and got Brian off fairly quickly anyway. When that had happened, Stewie drooled out as much as he swallowed, choking, and a hand appeared over the side of the table, groping for something to soak up the mess with. Brian, feeling rather limp-not just _down there _but all over- and embarrassed, lurched weakly forward in his seat and thrust some paper towels into the teen's hand.

It was a good thing the business reached its finishing point when it did. Practically as soon as Stewie had crawled out from beneath the table, raised himself to a standing position and disposed of the sodden paper towels in the trash can, the front door was heard to open and close, and shortly after, his brother appeared in the kitchen.

"Hey, guys!"

"Hi, Chris. How was your slumber party ?" Brian asked politely.

"It was pretty cool. We played video games, made s'mores, swapped ghost stories, and went around making sure all the curtains were drawn to keep Mr. Herbert from peeking in on us. You know, the usual."

"Hm. Well, why don't you sit down and help yourself to some of these delicious pancakes Stewie was kind enough to whip up?"

"Alright!" Chris exclaimed joyously, pulling up a seat and stacking a plate high with the golden brown disc-shaped cakes. "Stewie, aren't you going to have any?"

"I already ate," Stewie replied calmly, causing Brian to almost choke on his coffee.

**BREAK!**

A scream ripped Stewie from his sleep sometime in the early hours the next morning, and he jolted awake, bringing himself up onto his elbows. "Hm? Huh? Wha- What's going on?" he stuttered, his voice thick and sleepy, blinking his eyes owlishly until he could focus on his surroundings. He glanced over at Brian, who was sitting up straight in bed, frozen in horror.

"Bri?" Stewie muttered, touching the other man on the arm, "What's-" But that was the furthest he got before he was knocked to the floor by his mother, who had pitched herself on top of Brian and was beating at his chest with her fists, shouting obscenities at him. As soon as Stewie had grasped the situation, he threw himself back aboard the mattress (that was the air mattress in the basement; with his brother and sister returned to the house, he and Brian been obliged to spend the night down there, so they could embark on their favorite pre-sleep activity without risking being overheard) pulling on Lois's shoulders, endeavoring to remove her from and get her to stop pummeling the man he loved.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! Lois! _Lois! _What the devil do you think you're doing, woman? Get off him!"

Lois rounded on him, her hair in disarray, her expression crazed.

"_How _could you let him do this to you? How could you be so stupid?"

Stewie opened his mouth to hurl back some scathing retort but was foiled by his mother shrieking, "Oh, God, Stewie, put some pants on!" She put up a hand to shield her eyes while jerking her head hastily away.

Stewie glared at her and fished around under the blankets with his toes until they located his underwear at the foot of the bed. He hurriedly tugged them on as he demanded, "What are you doing here? Your flight wasn't scheduled to land in Quahog until five o'clock tonight!"

"Your father contracted a bug in Monaco and wanted to come home as soon as possible, so we inquired about catching an earlier flight. Luckily there was one available," she explained. "He's at the hospital right now, getting checked out."

Turning swiftly back to the subject of her outrage, she ground out, "I want an explanation from you this instant." Her livid gaze flew back and forth between Stewie and Brian. "And I'll tell you right now that, 'the heater was broken, it was freezing cold in the house, so we decided to sleep in the same bed so we could share body heat and we stripped off all our clothes to warm up faster' won't cut it. Because in the first place, _why would you sleep in the damn basement if you were cold? Why would you sleep in the basement?" _she demanded hysterically, her voice suddenly rising to a shrill squawk that had both Stewie and Brian wincing with the irritation done to their eardrums.

"Where are Chris and Meg? Did they _know_ that you were down here, plowing their brother?" Lois paused ponderously. "That is, I assume that's the role you took, Brian. You _were_ the one who was doing the-"

"Yes," Brian interrupted, at lightning speed, making Stewie snort in exasperation and amusement. If Brian thinks he's forever going to escape being on the receiving end of things, that dog's got another thing coming. Because sure, Stewie likes being on bottom, and feels intuitively that essentially he _is_ 'a bottom', he's a scientist, too, and experimentation is important to him. And the thought of what the dominant position feels like is too intriguing a concept to forgo trying out.

"Brian," Lois spoke slowly, deliberately, simmering ire in her voice, her hands clenched in fists at her sides, struggling to contain her acute anger, "I want you to leave this house and never come back. Please collect your things and Get. The Hell. Out."

Brian's jaw dropped. He blanched, and wanted to argue, to plead his case, but he knew he had no choice. Feeling rather lost, he cast a glance about the basement, making a mental inventory of his possessions.

"_Mother_!" Stewie cried, outraged. "You can't- you can't just-" He went to Brian's side and clapped a firm hand on his shoulder in a show of solidarity.

"Don't you dare try and inform me what I can and cannot do, young man. You may be eighteen now, but as long as you live under this roof, I'm still the boss. You're just a stupid little boy who allowed yourself to get used for this _dog's _sexual gratification. And when Peter gets home, Brian, I'm sure even _he'll_ agree that you're a twisted deviant for what you did to Stewie and you deserve to be out in the street!"

Brian recovered himself a bit, enough to attempt to say something in his own defense: "Lois, I'm so sorry, but you've got to understand-"

"Shut. It." Lois ordered. "I've made up my mind. Anything you say can only piss me off further. I want you out and fast. Get to packing."

The pressure on Brian's shoulder intensified to the point of almost being painful. "If Brian goes, I go."

Lois raked a hand through the hair at her temple with an air of being greatly aggravated. "Oh, _Stewie_…" she groaned. "As if I don't have enough to deal with right here without you going and making idiotic statements like that. Please just go upstairs and wait for me in the living room, we're going to have a nice, long discussion, you and me. I'll be there in a little bit, but first I'm going to supervise Brian's packing." She gave the blond man in question a look of tremendous loathing. "He's already a thief; I want to make sure he doesn't steal anything _else._" It was impossible that what was she was referring to as the first thing Brian had - in Lois's view- '_stolen'_ was something besides Stewie's virginity.

"He _can't_ steal what is freely given to him," Stewie shot back with smug vindictiveness, grabbing onto his lover's arm and tugging him upright (thankfully, at some point Brian had put his boxers on) and toward the stairs. The dog, in shock from being kicked out, fully allowed himself to be led as they began to march up the steps. That is, Brian clomped dazedly up them while Stewie marched, proudly, dramatically, resolutely. At the top of the stairs he proclaimed, "I have a mind of my own, and it is made up! We are out of here!"

_To be continued…_

**Originally, I didn't envision them having sex a second time for a few more chapters. But seeing as I have no self-control... Oh, well. It's in keeping with the theme of the fic, anyway: people rushing into things, whether intentionally or not, and whether or not it's good for them. There will probably be more explicit sex scenes later on ;)**

**Oh, and just so there's absolutely no misunderstanding (I **_**really **_**don't think anyone would make this mistake, as I think it's pretty damn clear I'm a major slash advocate and in no way homophobic), but the irony of Brian and Stewie going to see that play was not meant to imply that their relationship is sexually perverse- although I **_**will **_**say that they'll probably be getting up to some awfully gosh darn kinky stuff! ;P I chose that play because it inspired the movie **_**About Last **__**Night, **_**which I thought appropriate.**

**Do you guys even know how cool you are? XD I value the fav and alert adds I get and, of course, all your generous feedback so much! Hope to hear from you again about this chapter!**


	8. A Place of Our Own

**Disclaimer: I do not, never have, and never will own Family Guy.**

**Chapter Eight: A Place of Our Own**

_Huh. How's this for taking it slow?_ Brian thought to himself as he stood just outside the door of the apartment he'd just signed a rental deal for. Signed it with Stewie. _Two weeks into our relationship and we're already living together._ Of course technically it had always been that way, they'd always lived under the same roof, but in their new situation as significant others, it was a whole different ballgame. It was a big step for any relationship, let alone one in its…infancy. Cohabitating. In their own place. Just the two of them. _So how long before the murder/suicide?_

"Bri? Hustle your bustle, mister, let's hurry up and get the rest of those boxes in here!"

Stewie emerged from the bathroom and started walking toward him, and Brian knew he was walking on air. Of course Stewie probably wasn't thinking about the host of relationship pitfalls that may lurk ahead of them; doubtless his image of them didn't go any further than them riding off into the sunset together- and, as a nifty bonus, leaving a supremely honked-off mother behind- to live happily ever after.

After Lois had surprised them in bed together- and received a gargantuan surprise herself- that morning, flipped out, and ordered Brian gone from the house, Stewie had charged on up to the second floor, Brian following numbly in his wake. They went into Stewie's bedroom, where Lois joined them shortly. She tried most strenuously to persuade her son not to go, but her pleas had no effect. She then resumed her tirade against Brian, who was still uncharacteristically tongue-tied when it came to defending and explaining himself. He couldn't remember what few words he'd managed to get in edgewise, but felt they must have been very clumsy and stupid. (At the same time, he also knew no matter what they'd been, they would have fallen on deaf ears, regardless.) All the while her son haphazardly tossed as many clothing items as he could fit and some miscellaneous, other personal effects into a suitcase. He also took a moment to don some clothes, and suddenly Brian recalled that he needed to throw something on over his underwear, too. He decided he really didn't care to run all the way down to the basement to grab his own clothes, where he might be pursued by Lois and cornered alone, so he dressed himself in a pair of slacks and shirt of Stewie's, the legs and arms of which, respectively, were too long. Both pants and shirt were also too tight.

When they made their not-so-grand but oh-so-dramatic exit**, **Stewie was the only one holding a suitcase, and Lois was still ranting at them from the porch.

Brian and Stewie went and booked a room at a moderately-priced hotel. It had been (irrespective of whether it _should_ have been) an acid test of Brian's fortitude to, with a man by his side, approach the desk clerk and request a room with one bed. In the morning, Stewie set off for Little Bo-tique, the upscale clothing store downtown where he was a cashier, while Brian stayed behind in their hotel room.

The next day, Stewie wasn't scheduled to work. While Peter was at the brewery and Chris and Meg at school, he and Brian had determined the time when Lois was probably out running her errands, then called the house a few times to make sure there was no answer. When there wasn't, they'd sneaked back to Spooner Street with a small moving van and hurriedly moved the rest of their belongings out.

They'd gotten the nicest place in the safest building they could afford, which, even in sleepy little Quahog, was only an efficiency apartment. Downtown, and thus close enough to Stewie's place of employment so he could walk to work, it came partially furnished. The living room, kitchen, and bedroom were all basically one room, with the sleeping area partitioned off from the others by an antique Japanese screen Stewie bought at a flea market, and there was a separate bathroom.

Stewie melded his lips to Brian's while sliding his hands into Brian's profusion of white hair. After he came out of the kiss, he scooped up one of the boxes sitting at Brian's feet out in the hallway and took it into the apartment. Brian took in the one he was already holding.

After they'd transported every box inside, they stood in the center of the diminutive living room (which they barely had room to do, now that it was filled with the very small number of boxes they'd brought), where they had a view of everything. Stewie puffed out his scrawny chest and surveyed his modest domain with pride.

"I think this place has got some _great_ potential- wouldn't you agree?"

Brian took a deep, fortifying breath. It wouldn't do to take a pessimistic perspective about this, now that they were already here, now that they were stuck. He would simply have to make the best of it. Besides, he had to admit that he was actually a little excited. And really, come to think of it, no matter what drama was in store for them, living with just Stewie was bound to be less of headache than living with him and the rest of the screwball Griffins was at times.

"I think we can make it work," he said softly, putting an arm around the younger man's shoulders and squeezing slightly.

**BREAK!**

"_Oh, Brian! Oh, yeah!" _Stewie moaned. "Just keep rubbing that big thing on me…!"

It was nighttime, and Brian and Stewie had adjourned to their 'bedroom' behind the Japanese screen. Under the covers, they were both in a state of semi-undress, Stewie in an undershirt and briefs and Brian down to his boxers, rutting against each other. Alternating between frenzied, desperate humping and slow rubs, luxuriating in the friction, while their lips connected and disconnected in quick, zealous kisses over and over again.

In between lip-meetings, Brian grunted "Oh yeah, talk dirty to me." Their lips made contact again in wet and passionate but speedy union, and at the next break, he added, "Before we got together, I never thought I'd find so many things to love about that mouth of yours."

"_I_ love _your_ mouth," muttered Stewie in a silken purr, before they both dived in for yet another kiss. At its end, he reached up with his fingers and skimmed them over Brian's lips, tracing them, then one of them paused at their center, where they were slightly parted, and slipped sensually inside of Brian's mouth. Brian sucked on it automatically.

A week had passed by, and passed by in a blur. Brian didn't know where the time had gone. He really did feel like he'd already adapted to this new order of things. It was early days yet, of course, but maybe he'd been overly-cynical with his first gloomy prediction of what life alone with Stewie would be like. So far things had been much more like his second prediction. Not that they didn't bicker, but mostly his new life was very relaxing. Stewie seemed devoted to making him happy. And there was no reason why things shouldn't continue on like this.

Stewie had taken the finger away and was doing something behind his, Brian's, back. His lower back. Make that doing something with his bottom. Brian could feel the finger slide beneath the waistband of his shorts, probing between his cheeks. He grunted as it breached his opening, permitting the intrusion, thinking Stewie was just trying to stimulate his prostate. He'd had women do that for him before. When another finger started to make itself at home, the stretch was more marked and Brian thought, _okay, this is a bit weird_, seeing as how Stewie had already located the small gland (and had Brian arching off the bed and seeing stars when he did). But wasn't until Stewie abruptly withdrew the probing digits, pulled back from Brian and grabbed hold of the onetime dog's ankles, trying to push his knees up toward his chest that Brian had an inkling of what Stewie was really up to. And when he finally understood, he absolutely balked, snatching his legs back from Stewie, drawing them tightly together and tucking them protectively underneath himself.

"No."

Stewie sat back on his ankles and scowled up at Brian. "Well, why not, I'd like to know? I let you put yours in mine all the time!"

"Yeah, I know, but…" Brian's head moved side-to-side frantically, his jaw rigidly set.

"Brian," Stewie almost laughed, "I'm not going to be _violent_ with you or anything. I'll be as careful with you as you were early on with me. I really think you'd like it."

"I j-just can't do it- I won't - it's not for me, I'm not one who…" the tangled knots of halting words stopped, he looked absolutely aghast. If one looked closely, he was nearly shivering. "I'm not…" he faltered again, as Stewie waited impatiently. Brian gave a small, pitiful twisting motion with his wrist. "…enough."

"You're not _gay_ enough, you mean?" Stewie scoffed, suddenly feeling the prickles of anger stirring. "Brian, you're dating- living with- a _man_. You have a live-in _boyfriend_. You fuck a man on a regular basis. I hate to break it to you, buddy boy, but that's pretty darn gay."

Brian didn't have anything to say to this; his position was hunched over, drawn in on himself in a self-protecting posture, while he trained his eyes downward on some spot on the duvet he'd evidently deemed supremely interesting- an imperfection in the material, perhaps.

Stewie added, "And I'll have you know that most gay couples take turns subbing and dominating."

"Oh, how the fuck would you know?" Brian bit back.

_Via thorough online and literary research. _Stewie'd hit up countless websites and adult bookstores, seeking out every tidbit of knowledge that would be beneficial to him understanding what to expect in a same-sex relationship. His thinking being that well, Brian may have all the practical experience, but Stewie was damned if he himself was going to climb into bed with his boyfriend a complete sexual naïf.

"Remember how when we started this thing you promised to be the ideal boyfriend?" he asked.

"So I'm not a good boyfriend unless I'm willing to do things out of my comfort zone?" Brian asked bitterly, eyes narrowed and smoldering.

"I didn't say that!" disclaimed Stewie snappishly, becoming genuinely annoyed now, and his cock going rapidly soft. "But, incidentally, I do think you'd be a _better _boyfriend if you could just open up your mind to explore your boundaries with me. What's the matter, don't you trust me, Brian?"

"I don't need to explore my boundaries, I know where they are! I-I'm just not comfortable with it, and really, th-that's all I should have to say. I mean, you should respect that!" Brian couldn't believe that Stewie was taking this kind of an attitude with him, acting like he didn't care about Brian's feelings at all. It was hurtful, and moreover, it was unfair. To listen to Stewie, the impression could be got that Brian never did _anything_ submissive. When, on their third night in this apartment, he believed, he'd stretched his boundaries so much as to give Stewie head. It hadn't been as bad as he'd expected, probably since he used to be a dog and during that time he'd had more disgusting things in his mouth. Plus, when he was a dog, he'd suck himself.

To have Stewie anally penetrate him, though, was something Brian unequivocally refused to do. Sure, he was somewhat afraid of the pain, but that wasn't the main reason. To grant Stewie admission into his body was too much…too much like being possessed, it was too…humiliating. It wasn't humiliating for Stewie to bottom, it wasn't humiliating for anyone who had a natural wanting for it, who craved it, who was curious…but for _Brian_ to do it…it would be like he was going against who he was.

Stewie attempted to persuade him no more. He sat silently on the bed, his demeanor suddenly aloof. Brian moved forward and offered a conciliatory kiss. However, Stewie shut him down, hand shooting up, palm extended, and literally pushed his face away.

"Do you mind if we just go to sleep?" the teen asked wearily, lying down with his back to Brian.

"Why?" Brian demanded, disbelievingly and slightly panicky. Evidently, his arousal was somehow still prevailing and he did not want one bit to have it deprived. "Because I won't comply and do this one thing that I'm extremely uncomfortable with? We can- we can still have a good time!"

"No," Stewie, denying both the (true) accusation and the indirect appeal for sex in one fell swoop. "It's - it's not because of that, it's because-" He yawned hugely, feigning great tiredness, when really, while disinclined to continue their verbal sparring (unusual for him) he wasn't sleepy at all. He was too alert, if anything, and would most likely be awake all night being troubled over what it meant that Brian wouldn't sub. "-because of all the talking."

"You _like_ to talk during sex! Remember two nights ago, when you were bouncing up and down in my lap, talking about that program you'd seen on PBS about Mesopotamia and King Hammurabi?"

"What can I say? The concept of 'an eye for an eye' justice gets me hot," Stewie replied with an attempt at loftiness. "Not the case with arguing about sex."

"There wouldn't have_ been _an argument if you weren't trying to pressure me into-" Brian made a tortured noise, abruptly got up, and disappeared around the dividing screen. Stewie heard him go stomping into the bathroom and slam the door. In a few minutes he returned, the bed dipping as he boarded it and lay down. Stewie feigned sleep. He didn't know if Brian bought it, but either way, the erstwhile dog didn't utter a word to Stewie. He also failed to pull Stewie against him. It was their custom to cuddle while sleeping, but tonight Brian didn't embrace him like usual. It was as though a sudden chill crept over Stewie. He lay there for he didn't know how long, feeling bereft, listening as Brian's breathing slowedand became very even, indicating he may well have been asleep. Stewie sat up against the headboard and turned his head in Brian's direction. As he gazed upon his love, words of adoration swelled up in Stewie's throat, almost asphyxiating him with their demand to be let out. Brian may or may not have been awake to hear them, but Stewie still spoke them into the quiet of the night:

"I love you, Brian. You are the center of my world."

**BREAK! **

"Hey, sexy." Stewie breezed into the apartment the next morning with two Styrofoam cups of coffee in one of those cardboard takeout trays.

"Hey, yourself." Brian leaned his head back for a kiss, and Stewie obliged. "Did you get some nice fresh air and exercise? More importantly, did you get me something other than that awful hazelnut crap you brought back last time?"

As a consequence of not owning their own coffee maker, Stewie been rising early and walking a mile and a half to a particular coffee shop he favored for their morning joe- there was one right on their block, but Stewie was persnickety about his java, much more than Brian was. _He_ only asked that he not be forced to drink the hazelnut variety.

Stewie deposited himself on the floor, opposite Brian on the couch, their cheap pine coffee table in between them. "It's a regular latte, Bri. Your favorite." He handed Brian his coffee and sipped at his own.

Brian was contented by this and took a drink from his cup. The two of them sat and enjoyed their beverages for a long spell, ostensibly in pleasant repose, but as Stewie watched Brian, he thought the ex-canine appeared to be rather brooding. Stewie was about to ask his partner what was on his mind, when Brian suddenly volunteered that information.

"I used to hate you."

Stewie was nonplused. He met Brian's eye. "I used to hate you, too."

"I hated you before you were even born."

Stewie put down his cup of coffee. "Well, what a lovely thing to tell me," he muttered sardonically.

"I wasn't saying it to hurt your feelings," Brian's expression was very soft as he looked back at Stewie; not just soft with apology, but soft like his focus on Stewie; it was obvious the focal point for his thoughts was faraway from the room they were in. "I was just thinking- letting my mind wander- and I was thinking back to when…Peter first brought me home. And I met Lois for the first time." He chuckled ruefully. "I fell for her almost immediately. So hard. She was so beautiful, and so kind to me, she made me dinner and asked me about myself and she really acted interested to hear everything…I thought, _wow, this is a really special lady_."

Stewie felt his face go quite flat as he listened to Brian. He didn't know where this was going, but he didn't think he liked it. He thought it was in quite bad taste for Brian to gush about how head over heels he'd been for Lois. As if Stewie wanted to hear it!

Brian kept talking. "We got along really well, too, right off the bat, and as the weeks went on, I actually- delusional idiot that I was- thought I might be making progress with her, that she might be starting to fall for me. And then I remember she came home one day… I was the only one in the house, I was sitting on the sofa," he gazed pensively down at the sofa he currently sat upon, as though it was the very same, "and she said she'd just been to the doctor. She told me that she was pregnant. And then I realized she was still sleeping with Peter, and she was going to give birth to something else, another child that would bond her with him, another reason to stay with him. And I decided I hated that reason."

"Brian," Stewie began, his voice creaking a bit. "Why-"

"Because it's…so damned….amazing," said Brian, suddenly staring at Stewie with a strange, new look, as though just the sight of th younger man dazzled him, "how things have changed. My feelings…have long since…have undergone such a profound change that, God, I'm just- I'm so…_inexpressibly _glad you're here!" he said feelingly, with a wobbly smile and pink-tinged cheeks, wondering if he would _ever _be comfortable speaking romantically to Stewie as he had the women he'd dated.

"Oh, look who's getting mushy on me," Stewie jibed, but his small, touched smile and the fleetingly misty look in his eyes revealed all-too-well how he truly felt about the 'mush',

Once Stewie had left for work, Brian went over to the tiny kitchen area that comprised a corner of the main living space. He rounded up some snacks, then returned to the sofa and stretched himself out on his back, settling in for another day of maxin' and relaxin'. Glancing at the bowl of corn chips he had balanced on his stomach, he reflected that it might be wise for him to begin joining Stewie on his morning walks, at the very least, if he didn't want the little paunch he had to expand into a full-blown spare tire.

Around midday, he dozed off. He woke approximately two hours later and was still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes when a series of sharp, strident knocks came at the apartment door, making Brian sit bolt upright and sending the bowl of chips falling to the floor. He looked toward the front of the apartment, surprised. He waited for a repeat of the knocking, certain at first that he'd imagined it, or that it had been for next door, until he heard another string of quick, robust raps. Who could it be? This was unexpected, indeed. Brian and Stewie didn't _get_ visitors. Neither of them really had any friends, and as far as Brian knew, their family didn't even know where they lived. He rolled off the couch and went to answer the door. He was right up to it when the demanding knocking resumed yet again.

"Alright, alright, keep your shirt on!" Brian muttered. It was a neighbor, perhaps, wanting to introduce themselves and get acquainted, perhaps borrow the time-honored cup of sugar. Did people do either of those things anymore? He sighed and opened up the door.

When he saw who stood on the other side of it, Brian started and took a step back.

"Peter?"

**BREAK!**

"What're you doing here?"

As Stewie'd left the downtown clothing boutique where he worked to go on his lunch break, he'd spotted his mother in her car parked right out front of the building, waiting to ambush him. He'd briefly entertained the notion of dashing back inside and leaving via the back exit, or maybe not leaving the store at all and making it a vending machine lunch. But then he calmed the flight instinct and ordered himself sternly not to be so pathetic as to wimp out over something as minor as a run-in with his mother. Some sort of confrontation was inevitable sooner or later, anyway.

"You always take your break at one thirty," Lois said, her tone calm, conversational. She balanced her elbow on the rolled-down window and rested her chin in her palm. "I know. I've been staking this place out for the last week."

Stewie scowled. "You're stalking me. I'm getting a restraining order." He began to walk away down the sidewalk, but Lois drove along next to him, keeping her car close to the curb.

"I've just been worried about you," she said sadly.

"Worried about me," Stewie muttered contemptuously. "Why? What do you think's going to happen to me? Don't you think I can take care of myself? God, when I was a _baby_ you weren't so concerned about my wellbeing."

"You did this so you could be together." Somehow, Stewie knew she wasn't talking about his moving out, but why he had created the technology to turn Brian human and himself into an adult. It was a guess, but spoken by her in such a manner that it was clear she felt fairly secure in the probability of her guess being right on the money. "That's why you built the machines."

"Bravo, Lois. You _do _have a brain under that outdated, Sarah Jessica Parker in _Mars Attacks!_ haircut."

Lois bit her lip, her eyes sad.

"So _what _exactly are you in opposition of?" Stewie asked brusquely, cutting to the core of the matter. "Why are you so against Brian's and my relationship? We waited until I became an adult to hook up," he lied. Well, _somewhat _lied. They _had _waited until Stewie made himself eighteen to become an _official_ couple, after all. "We did everything right!"

"I don't think you're a good fit," Lois said baldly. "I don't think you should be together."

"No?" quizzed Stewie venomously."Well, I dare say you wouldn't take warmly to the idea of me _fitting _together with _any _man."

Lois shook her head. "I don't mind if you're gay. You're my child, and I love you no matter what. It-it's just…you being with…_him_!" Her eyes flashed with mingled rage and regret when she made reference to '_him'._ She inhaled sharply and exhaled slowly, pinching her eyes shut. When she reopened them, she said composedly, "And Stewie, when you and I were working on decorating your room, we spent a lot of time together, and I'd have to be a total dumbass not to pick up on the all the gay vibes oozing out of your pores. I knew that when you started seeing somebody, it would most likely be a man."

"What's wrong with Brian?" challenged Stewie. "He's Peter's best friend, and you yourself always counted him as a friend, as well. I thought the whole family loved him, even though you haven't always treated him like a loved one should be treated. As a matter of fact, sometimes you treated him more like dirt than a valued family member. But you always _claimed _to love him, then he decides that he wants to be with me and, what? Now he's a villain?" Stewie, indignant on behalf of his beloved, asked in a voice now verging on shouting.

"Well, yes, I _do_ have a tendency to look at him that way now!" Lois exclaimed, unabashedly. "Can you blame me? For most of the time he's known you, you were a baby, he was one of your primary caregivers! I don't understand why he's doing this, but whatever he's going through right now, I think he's a sick fuck to drag you into it this way. Mark my words, he's just using you for his own devices!" She was still positively furious at Brian, that much was clear, but for Stewie she had only sympathy, as the look she gave him then proved. "It's only…natural," she cringed faintly at the word, "that you would feel a pretty deep connection with him, but I think you're confusing a friendly and…familial connection with a romantic one. It's not surprising: you grew up, literally, over night…But maybe you should tell me in your own words. Why him? What's he good for?"

"We have spectacular sex," Stewie replied, grinning nastily when his remark garnered the hoped-for scandalized expression from his mother. He glanced down at his watch, noting the time, then clicked his tongue and sighed in displeasure. "Do you know I've already wasted a quarter of an hour talking to you, and that's also a quarter of my break? I'd like for you to drive off so I can proceed to Wok-a Wok-a- you know, that Chinese restaurant that's a comedy club at night?- and procure sufficient nourishment before I go back to work."

"And does _Brian _work?"

"I have every expectation that it will not be long before he is gainfully employed," Stewie answered starchily.

"I see. And are these expectations well-founded? Is Brian actively _looking_ for a job?"

Stewie's steps slowed and then stopped altogether. Lois likewise stopped the car. The corner of his eye twitched compulsively; Lois had hit a sore spot. To date, Brian _hadn't_ engaged in any sort of job search. He'd spent the past week merely loafing about the apartment, watching television or reading one of his interminable novels. It was what he'd done as a dog, but Stewie had thought now it would be different. Nor was Brian taking care of much of the work on the homefront, besides drying the dishes that Stewie washed. But the young auburn-haired man wasn't about to admit that. He refused to give his infernal mother the satisfaction.

"Mother. Brian is a good man. Not that anybody ever fell for anyone else because they were 'good'."

"Stewie, honey, please," Lois begged. "Just consider your position here for one moment. You're eighteen years old, supporting your twenty-six-year-old boyfriend, who, whatever his attractions, has just as many shortcomings. You should be saving for college, but instead your money's going toward rent and groceries and all these expenses you wouldn't have if you were still living at home!"

Stewie stroked his chin and queried, "Okay, just hypothetically speaking: were I to move back home with the family, I would still absolutely want to continue seeing Brian. How would you handle that?"

"I would certainly discourage it," Lois said with a frown.

Stewie nodded. "Well, there you go."

Lois faced forward and stared out the windshield, perturbed. She turned the key in the ignition and began to rev the engine a bit. Stewie waited for her to pull away from the curb and drive off, but she stuck her head out the window and touched her son briefly on the sleeve.

"Can I ask _you _a question now?"

Stewie looked at her askance, but after a small moment's delay, gave a second nod of the head.

"My question is- and I want you to seriously think about this- is he really worth it? Is he really worth mortgaging your future for? Is he really worth the high risk- now, every time you get into a relationship there's some inherent risk involved, but with him the risk is _astronomically _high- of getting your heart very badly broken?"

Stewie knew this was Lois's last-ditch effort to, in her mind 'get through to' him today and also that she didn't expect too much to come of it. She could tell that there was zero likelihood of anything she'd said thus far having had any sway with him, just as he could tell that she was surprised when he actually took a moment to mull over her question.

"I don't know if he's worth it. But I love him," he said softly. "It's not like I think he's never going to disappoint me. I know he will. I don't harbor the delusion that he'll never do or say anything to hurt me. I know he'll do that, too. But I _need _to be with him. I'll never be completely happy unless I am."

Lois looked, quite honestly, there was no other word for it- _grieved _for him. "That is dangerous, pinning all your hopes of happiness on one person."

Stewie shrugged. "It may well be, but I don't have any choice in the matter," he stated with a wry little laugh. "I can't change it…I think I was born to love him."

_To be continued…_


End file.
